Soldier's Poem
by Little Miss Lover
Summary: With nothing left to live for Alex Rider returns to Brecon Beacons. When he wakes up in a different room he suspects nothing more ominous than RTI. Between sinister terrorist organisations and a secret service with blood on their hands, who can he trust?
1. Prelude

**Prelude**

He'd really done it now, he thought, curled up in the back seat of the ostentatious government-owned Hummer. He'd been drifting in and out of sleep throughout the entire journey from London, watching as the weather changed to reflect his mood the further West they went. The soft thrum of the overly powerful vehicle's engine lulled him into a state between consciousness and not as he regarded the outside world from his protective ball. He registered his chauffeur – a government agent, obviously – eyeing him up every now and then surreptitiously, as well as the armed guard squeezed into the car. The SAS soldiers looked almost comical in their full army fatigues and semi-automatic rifles positioned on their laps, and Alex felt no small surge of bitterness towards MI6 who had only seen fit to provide him with this level of protection after it had been proven that he had powerful enemies. While Alex was glad for the protection, he was angered that the proof had needed to come in the form of Jack.

His greatest fear had been that people would take advantage of his bonds with the people closest to him, so he'd quietly and systematically pushed away all of his friends from school – even the tenuous friendship he had maintained with Tom over the years broke down from the strain, something he was both pleased and sad about. Jack had been his only true friend, and one he could not get rid of considering her connection to him. However, Jack's friendship was something he had never wanted to purge himself of, an emotional attachment that was eventually, in his opinion, selfish and short sighted. It was too late now.

Jack hadn't woken up since that day. The fire had spread through the house at an alarming rate, and despite his attempts to save her she'd maintained 30 percent burns having been knocked out from smoke inhalation. She had been put in a medically induced coma, one that she hadn't surfaced from. A machine breathed for her now.

It had been then that MI6 had realised the danger to his life. Jack was as safe as she could be, and Alex's request that he be given more training was put into action before the day was out.

Since the attempt on his life only three days had passed, yet he regarded it with a cold detachment, revisiting his memories with all the professionalism of a soldier being de-briefed. It wasn't healthy, but it was a coping mechanism, and MI6 seemed to have a somewhat lax approach regarding his mental health anyway. They obviously weren't expecting him to live to an age at which his past experiences could catch up with him. He couldn't blame them – he knew just as well as they did that he was only alive now due to a mixture of his fortitude and luck.

He'd only been in the car about 3 hours, although it had seemed much longer to him through the haze of sleep, when the armoured car trundled to a stop, uneven in the mud that constantly pervaded the camp at Brecon Beacons. His SAS guard jumped out of the car to start unloading the boot and the agent in the front seat surveyed the surroundings with a mixture of contempt and pity.

"I don't know what you did to deserve this, kid," he remarked lightly, "but good luck. You're going to need it here."

Alex nodded, confused. Hadn't MI6 told anyone what he was doing at the Beacons? _Oh, right_, he thought. _Classified._ Just like everything else in his life. With that, he opened the door. The soldiers accompanying him were cordial, if quiet, as they handed him his pack. He assumed they'd been told just as much as the agent regarding his situation. They told him that a short walk of about six miles was still required to get into the camp proper, and with that Alex left behind the civilised world.

* * *

><p><em><strong>My first Alex Rider fanfic, guys. Tell me what I'm doing rightwrong? Encouragement is nice, but so is constructive criticism. I hope you all enjoy it.**_


	2. Throw It All Away

**Chapter One**  
><strong>Throw It All Away<strong>

Alex launched himself into the world of SAS training for the second time not with a bang or a whimper but with the squelch of mud oozing out of his regulation combat boots. After his brisk walk in he could hardly bring himself to be sorry for the mess he'd created walking in to the base headquarters, neither could be care less about how out of place he looked amongst the soldiers in all their formal finery, instead concentrating on avoiding all eye contact while he followed his guard to wherever he was supposed to be going for his brief.

The group stopped.

"The major will see you shortly." The receptionist seemed to appear from nowhere, and he was pointed towards some inviting leather chairs arranged in a cluster around a coffee table. He thought it surprisingly opulent for an army training facility and, almost afraid of touching anything with his dirty hands, perched on the edge of one of the seats steadfastly ignoring the selection of literature available to him, instead opting for vigilantly sweeping the area with his eyes, unconsciously looking for and cataloguing entrances and exits, both intended and inadvertent. The receptionist, he realised, was looking at him appraisingly and, seemingly satisfied, returned to her work on the computer set up in front of her. She was pretty enough – short brown hair and brown eyes – but her unfortunate nose told Alex she wasn't hired for looks. He was right – she was recovering from a broken leg and several fractured ribs courtesy of too many years in active service. That could have been him, he thought, had MI6 given a crap about his injuries. He wasn't sure if he would have wanted that. Deskwork was just too… boring.

He wasn't given any time to feel guilty about that, as the receptionist cut his thoughts short, telling him that the major would see him now.

Alex walked in to the room, straightening his uniform as he went. While he hadn't felt self-conscious or underdressed before, the wood panelling and old-timey smell of this room set him on edge, and he cursed inwardly as he once again saw the mud splatters reaching up to his torso. The major looked up.

"Rider."

"Sir."

A pregnant pause. The major shuffled some papers around on his desk, entirely at ease. He seemed intent on making Alex feel awkward in some way, but Alex was having none of it. After a few more minutes of pointless waiting, the major cleared his throat and deigned to speak.

"I never expected to see you back here again, Rider."

Alex attempted a small smile. He feared it came out rather lopsided.

"I wasn't either, at the time."

The major ignored his lack of respect for him, instead nodding gravely and looking back down at the papers in front of him. Alex glanced down only to see his file splayed across the desk. He looked up, panicked, right into the major's eyes.

"As you can see," the major said, maintaining eye contact, "I've read your file." Alex didn't move. "I'm impressed. When you first came here, I thought you were some snotty kid with connections to MI6, but now…" He major cleared his throat once again.

Silence once again ruled the room.

"Well," the major continued, obviously flustered at Alex's lack of response, "I'm sure I don't need to tell you this is classified information." A raised eyebrow from Alex was all he needed to move on. "You can't tell anyone about your exploits. Not even your teammates. There are some things more important than companionship – protecting your nation's greatest secret being one of them."

Alex nodded.

"What do you suggest I do then?"

"Whatever you want. As long as it's a viable story, I don't care."

With that, Alex was dismissed and he started on his trek to find him new unit.

ARARARARAR

It turned out, he realised belatedly as he traipsed his way into the hut he'd been assigned to, that his 'new' unit wasn't all that new. The hut had a K painted messily on its door, and as Alex kicked his stuff under his bed and fell spread-eagle onto the hard mattress he had a moment of revelation. He didn't hesitate to word his concerns.

"Fuck."

ARARARARAR

Twenty minutes later found Alex doing one-armed push-ups in his corner of the hut to hide the shakiness he'd developed after his epiphany, and this was the sight that K-Unit was presented with as they re-entered their barracks after their unexpected meeting with the major. As they approached, their voices floated to Alex on the breeze, and he sighed as he realised they were just as bigoted and judgemental as before.

"I can't believe we're going to have to train with _another_ brat who's probably never done a day's work in his life…" As they said this, K-Unit rounded the door. Wolf was the first to speak.

"Well, look what the cat's dragged in."

Alex shot a glare at him through his too-long fringe dripping into his eyes but finished his set, getting up and wiping his slightly sweaty hands off on his trousers, reaching out for a handshake.

"Nice to see you again."

"Again?" Wolf's hand shuddered to a halt halfway to meeting Alex's hand, and Alex flicked his hair out of his eyes, staring into Wolf's intently.

"Holy shit, Cub! Is that you?"

It wasn't Wolf who spoke, but Ben.

"Hey, Fox. What's up, man?" Alex shifted his attention from Wolf, who was clearly not intent on shaking his hand any time soon, to Ben, whom he quickly wrapped up in a swift, manly hug.

"A–aah, Cub!" the man replied, hastily covering his near reveal of Alex's name – which was met with a stony glare. "I haven't seen you in two years!"

Alex pulled back and looked at him funnily.

"I'm not surprised by that, Fox." Truth be told, Mrs Jones had seen to that. After Fox killed Ash, she'd been worried that any resentment between them would have compromised any missions they were sent on together. Before Alex had had time to tell them there was no animosity between the two of them, Ben had already been sent back to the SAS as K-Unit were successfully scaring off any replacements they sent in Fox's place.

Alex hit Fox on the back in a friendly manner once more before turning round to face the other men. Whereas Snake and Eagle were looking at him with carefully guarded expressions, Wolf's eyes were narrowed and suspicious – trained on him.

"Fox, Cub," It was Eagle speaking, his voice measured and tight. "Do you two know each other properly?"

Fox moved to speak, but Alex cut him off, promising with his eyes that if Fox so much as mentioned anything to do with him he'd make him pay for it later. Painfully.

"We've met outside of work."

The vague answer in no way satisfied any of the other soldiers.

"Well, isn't that a coincidence?" This time it was Snake speaking. Alex was suddenly very glad that none of these men were spies; the phrase 'Where others see coincidence, I see conspiracy' never seemed more apt. Fox nodded and went along with the story.

"Yeah… Cub and I go to the same bank."

Alex could have kicked him for the inside reference, and would have had any of the men shown any recognition of the double entendre. As such, none of them did so he withheld his anger. The others accepted this excuse with little complaint – after all, unlike him, their job was to follow orders, not question them. He shook out him arms and looked at the watch Smithers had given him when he was 14. It was about eight. He sighed.

"I suppose I've missed dinner?"

Fox laughed at his one-track mind, and shook his head. "The canteen's always open for some form of sustenance." He stared Alex in the eyes very deliberately before saying, slowly, "I'll show you the way." If that wasn't a blatant insistence that they go somewhere privately to talk about this he didn't know what was.

The rest of K-Unit decided against following them, as they had just returned from the mess hall and obviously didn't care that much about Alex. Good. Alex loaded his plate up with a few different coloured slops and dug into them. Ben quickly sat down opposite before contemplating him as he ate. After a few minutes he was getting understandable disconcerted.

"Are you quite alright?" Alex was practically growling at him, and Ben had the good grace to flush.

"Sorry," he said, quiet. "I didn't mean to stare."

Alex could hear the genuine repentance in his voice, and batted the apology away.

"S'okay."

The mess hall was quiet, disturbingly so. Most of the men had already cleared out from the main dinner rush and now all that remained was the quiet hum of hushed conversation.

"We feel just awful, A– Cub." Ben frowned. "Well, I do at least. I feel terrible about how we treated you last time you were here. It's just– these are some really good guys, Cub." Ben – no, it was Fox here – looked him in the eye. "This time I'm sure they'll all appreciate what you're here for – what I assume you're here for – and they'll make it a lot easier for you." Fox's voice was drowned out as Alex's thoughts started swirling around madly.

Unlike last time, Alex didn't _want_ the training to be easy. He sent himself here to become stronger – it wasn't just some plan of MI6's he was subject to. He wanted to get strong enough and talented enough to protect Jack, and the entire world along with her, and he wasn't going to get there with people mollycoddling him. He wanted to be worked into the ground, until he physically couldn't stand from the pain of exertion, and even then he'd still keep on trying to get better. He had to be better, stronger, more perfect, and if he had to be a complete and utter dick to these people and be miserable for the next six months or so then so be it. He remembered the major's words: _there are some things more important than companionship – protecting your nation's greatest secret being one of them._ Protecting the nation itself, not to mention most of the rest of the world, was another.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Two chapters at once. This will be the only time this ever happens, but I don't really consider the prelude a chapter. Hope you liked it.<em>**


	3. Let's Lose Ourselves

**Chapter Two – "Let's Lose Ourselves"**

Alex, or rather Cub as he tried to remember to refer to himself as, and Fox returned to their unit's hut in silence. Fox was obviously disheartened by this – he'd found that Cub was a friendly, engaging person in Australia, and he'd ended up feeling no small amount of respect for him. To see him so quiet and withdrawn tugged on his heartstrings to say the least. Musing on these changes inwardly the trek back was over quickly. Snake, Wolf and Eagle were all sat on two beds facing each other playing cards over a flimsy trestle table; Fox went to join them, eager to remove himself from Cub's increasingly awkward company. Cub, on the other hand, simply ambled to his bed where he started rummaging in his bag. Snake, seeing this as a way for Cub to hide his nervousness around a group of people he was slightly less than comfortable with, spoke up.

"There's always room for one more in a game of cards," he said, his tone friendly if not slightly awkward. "You up for a game of cheat?" Cub swallowed a giggle at how apt the game was considering his profession, instead opting to shake his head.

"Thanks for the offer, Snake, but I'd much rather have a shower." He felt grimy and oddly dry all over thanks to the car's air conditioning on the trip up; it didn't matter how long a journey was – travelling would always make him feel dirty.

"You're lucky then, Cub, 'cause we're moving up in the world!" Snake threw an arm vaguely in the direction of the direction of a door that Alex had presumed had been a back exit. "The whole barracks has been upgraded – each hut has their own en suite bathroom, a real five star experience." He grinned wryly at Cub, suggesting it was considerably less than that.

Functionality ruled over form in the army, and their bathrooms were no exception to the rule – Alex wouldn't have been surprised to see it in a cheap motel room somewhere – with a meticulously clean but minimalistic shower unit which was his sole focus at the moment. Alex had gained a frightening attention to personal hygiene rituals over the two years MI6 had forced him into working for them thanks to his various wounds and injuries – most of them had been sustained on enemy soil with no proper healthcare available and in those cases infection could lead to death. It was with this thought that Alex stripped himself off, throwing his clothes to the floor on the way, before hurling himself into the shower's freezing cold spray.

The slightest touch of water on his abused back hurt, the still healing scars still incredibly sensitive, so the cold water's numbing effect was welcome to him. He didn't even notice when the water warmed up so caught up was he in his machinations. Then men out in the main room had seemed like they were genuinely trying to be nice to him, which made his job harder. He didn't know what he could do to make them dislike him that much other than generally being shit at everything and dragging the whole team down like a dead weight, but that idea wasn't conducive to his aims and so was thrown out of his mind. It was as he was mindlessly and methodically disinfecting the lacerations on his back that he realised how exactly he could make K-Unit back off.

ARARARARAR

A rather dramatic cloud of steam billowed out of the bathroom as Alex flung the door open, striding into the main room as if he owned the place. Nobody looked – nobody cared. Alex heaved a sigh.

"Where do you guys keep the towels?"

Eagle looked over and recoiled, but not before catching an eyeful of Cub–crotch.

"Oh, Jesus, Cub. Put it away!" Eagle flailed in his direction, eyes scrunched up to avoid another glimpse of Cub's not-entirely-unattractive-but-most-definitely-underage-and-out-of-bounds body. "They're over there, in the linen cupboard-y thing."

Cub grunted his thanks and moseyed over to it, outwardly unashamed. Inwardly, he was, for lack of a better description, a nervous wreck. His body was always kept firmly under wraps if possible, and while he'd been trained to endure 'sexual humiliation' via RTI sessions there was a difference between psychological torture and displaying your flaws yourself. However, he just heaved a sigh and decided to own the pants-less look. He needed to get stronger for Jack's sake, and if he had to walk around showing off his mutilated body to people who would hold it against him then so be it. His hands found thin white towels – the kind of type you'd get from a cheap hotel – and he resisted the urge to drown himself in folds of fabric, instead just wrapping one around his waist and draping another over his shoulders, carefully hiding the bright purple scar tissue criss-crossing his back.

_Here we go,_ he thought. _The big reveal._

"What're you guys playing over there?" Cub moved closer to the table, leaning over Wolf's shoulder. They'd stopped playing Cheat while he was in the shower, and while it was obvious to Alex that it was poker, he needed a question to make his plan work.

"We're playing Texas Hold-ems, y–" Wolf had been turning around to look at him incredulously, and was rendered speechless for the second time that night as he was left face to face with the scar over Cub's heart.

"Cub." Snake's face was grave, his voice even more so. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yeah," Alex grinned. "Pretty cool, huh." He cringed inwardly, this act made him feel dirty. He noted Fox's mouth opening and closing redundantly, and while Eagle and Snake both looked shocked, Snake managed to get spit some words out.

"What happened?"

Alex toed the ground, looking both embarrassed and proud.

"…Gang war."

Wolf's face became red with anger.

"What the fuck?" he roared, "It's not 'pretty cool', you imbecile! I didn't take a bullet for you to go and get yourself involved in some fucking feud over drug money or some shit!"

Eagle's head snapped to Wolf.

"When'd you take a bullet for him?"

"He was in the fucking school I was at that time, Point Blanc." He scowled at Alex. "I thought you were some kind of official operative or something – god knows why – but it turns out you're just a fucking rich kid with a rich dad getting special treatment!"

Alex plastered the most confused look on his face that he could muster up.

"What, like you guys don't have some killer scars you're proud of?"

"It's different," Wolf spat, suddenly so close to him that their noses were almost touching, "When it's something you did yourself. We–" He gestured at his unit. "–get to be proud of our wounds because we got them fighting on the front line, for **justice**, not in some fucking gang war over fucking drug money, you shitty little prick." Alex had never realised how intimidating Wolf's small stature could be. It scared him. "You… I can't talk to you. Put a fucking shirt on before I hurt someone."

_That certainly did the trick,_ Alex thought to himself, admittedly somewhat saddened. _They'll be leaving me alone now…_ He pushed the angst he felt over people's reactions to his marred body to the deepest recesses of his mind, hoping to avoid it but, much like Scorpia, Alex Rider does not forgive, neither does he forget.

ARARARARAR

_He was in chains. His wrists burned with a passion. His back he could no longer feel but for the pain shooting through it, and the bed he was laying on did nothing to help the pain. His arms were sore from hours in the same position over his head, handcuffed to the headboard. Tremors of pain emanated from his knee. He didn't need to look down to know what would happen next – the silk sheets and overly soft mattress told him where he was._

_A figure in the darkness placed their hand gently on his ankle, playing with the shackle that rested there._

"_Alex." The voice was deep and dark and sent a shiver down his spine. His toes curled. "Look at me, Alex." Alex looked, but he couldn't see. He could never see. "You've been a very bad boy, Alex." The hand continued caressing, moving to gently touch the underside of his foot. Alex knew what was coming, and jerked away. "Are you resisting me, Alex?" The hand left him; Alex tried to tell him through the gag that _no, he'd never do that,_ but he __**knew**__ what was coming, he knew and he couldn't stop it, could never stop it._

"_Alex." His head jerked up, tears forming in his eyes. "You're mine, Alex. You're mine and you let people look at you." _No, I didn't. _ "You just put your body out there, you let them look at you. You __**made**__ them look at you, you slut."_ No, I'd never do that; I know what's coming. _A single tear rolled down his face, soaking into the cloth gag stuffed into his mouth._

"_Alex. You're __**mine**__."_

_And that's when the __**real**__ pain started._

* * *

><p><strong><em>Actually, yeah. So I typed this one up real fast for you guys and I don't like withholding chapters so have fun with this. Thanks to all my reviewers, I replied to you all personally except the people who disabled private messaging. Constructive criticism welcome and appreciated.<em>**

**_Edit: I got a review telling me they thought that Wolf's swearing was out of character. On the one hand, I agree. He'd never swear in the books because it's written for 14 year olds mainly, and swearing would reduce the target audience significantly. However, on the other hand, in England (I feel like the culture is different in other places) in normal everyday conversation we swear for every other word so it's really not that big a deal for people over here to do that, although I see why you'd think it strange if you lived in a different, slightly more reserved culture._**

**_Any more questions? I like explaining things and I next to never get offended so come at me, bros!_**


	4. Be

**Chapter Three – "Be"**

He woke up, gasping for air, tears forming in his eyes, sobbing dryly into his flimsy pillow. He came around quickly enough though, and dried his face hurriedly on the fraying hem of his shirt. He looked around the room. Wolf was snoring like it was going out of style, so nobody would've woken up. He sighed in relief – the last thing he needed right now were people caring about him.

He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hands trying to push the memories away. He'd learned never to scream out whether conscious or not, a skill which proved useful in all areas of his life. Looking at his watch, he saw it was past four in the morning, and he'd not be able to get to sleep before it was time to wake up anyway, so he rolled over to sit on the edge of his bed, head in hands as he evened out his breathing. Nightmares… He'd been having them more often since Jack's death. He missed hugging her, nuzzling into her bright red hair, feeling her breath on his neck as they held each other close – closer than he'd let any other person… willingly. He sighed; time for another shower. He needed to stay clean.

Alex's morning routine would take significantly longer now thanks to his need for secrecy. Smithers had provided him with special liquid skin to cover his more visible and less explainable scars, and while Alex needed some of them showing to solidify his story, the marks from torture would just bring more unnecessary questions and pity. He showered and smeared the latex over his back, trying to hide the marks from the sharp caress of a cat o nine tails. The fake skin stung slightly on application, but hid them well enough so he ignored it, rubbing more onto his torso hiding past cuts and burn marks. When he was done, he looked almost normal.

_Is this what I would have looked like? _ He wondered, staring into the full-length mirror adorning the wall of the bathroom. _Without knowing the horrors of the world?_ He knew it wasn't. He'd aged in ways other than physically; there was a telling emptiness in his eyes, a distinct limpness of hair that betrayed the strains of his job. He finished drying himself off and clambered into his fatigues. Sitting on the floor, he paused while putting his socks on. He looked at the sole of his right foot and scowled, shoving it violently into his combats before storming back into the main room. K-Unit was still sleeping. He checked his watch. It was five now. He had no idea when they usually woke up, but he figured he had at least an hour to play with; time enough to do some reading.

ARARARARAR

When Fox woke up it was to the sight of Cub lying on his bed fully dressed immersed in a heavy-looking leather-bound tome entitled "Zur Genealogie der Moral". He coughed slightly, and Cub's head snapped up to look at him, his entire body taut and ready to move.

"Hey– it's just me."

Cub sighed. Why the hell was Fox so persistent?

"What's up, Fox?" He was defensive, and Fox could see Cub trying to slowly manoeuvre the book out of his sight.

"It's time to get up," Fox said, placating. "You might want to hide that if you want to maintain your bad-boy image."

Cub scowled fiercely. Fox smiled inanely. They reached an impasse. It was Cub who broke the silence.

"Well… Aren't you going to wake them up?"

Fox realised he'd been staring.

"Ah. Right, yes."

ARARARARAR

The rest of the team had woken up quickly, with Wolf still scowling at him. Snake and Eagle were slightly cold towards him, but that would be all he needed. He hoped. As a unit they had progressed to the mess hall and eaten together in silence. Alex feared that was his fault – he hasn't intended for the team to stop interacting, just for them to make his life a little more difficult. He'd barely withheld a sigh, and they'd continued on through to their first 'activity' of the day, a jolly four-mile jog against the clock. The amount of time they were given was 45 minutes; Wolf had reduced that to thirty. Alex knew why, and congratulated himself. This had been his aim all along.

Ten minutes later and he wasn't congratulating himself any more. His pack – weighted so as to reflect the equipment an SAS soldier would carry in a temperate climate – cut into his shoulders and weighed heavily on his cut-up back, making him wince as he ran. After a particular unfortunate incident he ended up favouring his left leg, which wasn't exactly helpful when running full pelt around a fucking hill. His heart strained and fluttered, not used to the intense prolonged activity, but he ignored it all, focusing on his destination.

By the end of the thirty minutes he was actually welcoming the lecture featuring weapons that he already knew like the back of his hand. He absently shook out his right leg; the thing had never been the same since those few months.

"Hey, Cub." It was Snake, who was sitting on his right. He looked concerned. "You okay?"

Cub's eyes widened, and he nodded.

"Yeah. I just sprained something is all."

Snake looked at him, incredulous.

"On that run?"

Alex wasn't sure who muttered 'pathetic' under their breath, but his blood boiled. He had done pretty well for someone who he wasn't sure should even be on active service.

His heart still hadn't calmed down.

He'd get used to it.

ARARARARAR

The rest of the day was given over to combat practice until three – two hours until lunch, half an hour's break followed by two hours after. Unfortunately they were set to work in units, and as much as he was sure that any one of the men would've liked to rough him up after his act last night, the sergeant in charge of the exercise had reduced him to stamina runs, sprinting from one end of the hall to the other width-ways until he could no longer move. The sergeant's grin told him he didn't expect him to keep it up for very long.

ARARARARAR

When K-Unit returned from lunch break, Cub was still running. It was no longer a sprint, but even jogging it was plain to see he had tunnel vision. Snake looked around the group as they were pairing up to fight. Nobody else seemed to be the worried, but as the team medic he needed to voice his concerns.

"You'll land up in the infirmary if you keep on doing that, you know."

Wolf and Eagle were circling each other.

"If I keep on doing what?" Cub looked up to Snake just as Eagle came flying at him, courtesy of one of Wolf's roundhouse kicks. Before he could recognise his as anything other than an enemy, Alex had Eagle on the ground with a knee in his back and a very dislocated shoulder.

"Shit, Cub!"

Alex looked down.

"…It was an accident?"

Eagle didn't look happy.

"Accident, my ass. Fuck you, Cub." He grit his teeth as Snake came over to fix him up, fixing Alex with a caustic glare.

ARARARARAR

He'd been right – training was much more gruelling when your own unit is working to actively sabotage you. Communications had broken down entirely somewhere around day three of Alex's stay at the Brecon Beacons, and he was now in his fifth week of training. He'd hidden everything well enough, and nobody had thought to question his story, with even Fox leaving his side where he'd remained firmly for the first week. Alex was happier this way – with no personal bonds he could just train to his heart's desire with nobody worrying about him and, conversely, nobody to worry about. Or, at least, that was what he thought until the night when he woke up to a fist grasping at his shirt and the all-too-familiar prick of an injection.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Okay, just never listen to me when I give you a deadline. I like getting reviews too much to not update as soon as I've written something. You guys wouldn't believe how much of a rush of gratitude and self-worth I get reading your compliments... Pretty sad, huh. But yeah, keep 'em coming, amazing people! Every time I get one it's like HOLY SHIT I'VE GOT TO WRITE MORE FOR THIS SEXY PERSON. SLEEP IS WORTHLESS. And please please please, if you think this pacing is too slow WORRY NOT. I'm not happy with this chapter being as boring as it is either, but think of it as the calm before the storm. Shit is going down next chapter.<em>**

**_Also, as a side note the rating's preemptively going up to M. Some people got offended by swearing I think, and yeah. Hide yo kids, hide yo wife._**


	5. Cause

_**This chapter has been extended. If you were brought here by an alert when you think you've already read this chapter, chances are you haven't seen the second bit.**_

**Chapter Four – "Cause"**

_He'd been sedated. The hands were back, but this time more feminine and less calloused. He was in his soft bed again, but the comfort and familiarity didn't make him feel safe; it made him feel terrified._

"_Alex," the voice said, soft yet nasal. The voice… of a dead woman. He stared into the darkness. It was futile._

"_Jack…?"_

_The hands touched his shackles reverently._

"_You've been a very bad boy, Alex."_

"_Jack, no, I haven't, what're you saying?"_

"_I thought we'd gotten over this drug problem?"_

"_I– There never was a drug problem, Jack, you __**know**__ that! Those people at school didn't know what they were talking about!"_

"_Really?" The voice was cold. "Then what's that?" He looked to where he instinctively knew Jack was staring._

_Track marks. He could have laughed, or cried._

"_Those're medical, Jack! I didn't do that!"_

_He might not have been able to see her, but he could feel the hatred in her gaze._

"_You're lying to me, Alex." _No, I'm not. _"You're lying to me __**again**__. After everything you did to me! After you __**killed**__ me!" Jack didn't fill him with the bone-deep despair ingrained into him by the other man that haunted his dreams, but she still made him apprehensive. "This just proves it to you, Alex. You can hide from the truth, but deep down…" The voice had been deepening progressively throughout Jack's speech, and now… "You're one of them." Alex's eyes snapped up, searching through the darkness until they met the other man's._

"…_One of us."_

_The man carved the soldering iron into his flesh and the terror returned._

ARARARARAR

Alex had been knocked out enough times to recognise the feeling of a floor underneath his head, and this was definitely a concrete floor… a very damp, cold concrete floor. He smelt mould in the air, and the tangy irony smell of blood lingered underneath. He cracked open an eye; the room he was in was well lit – overly so – and he was not alone.

"Cub."

"Eagle."

He sat up sluggishly, drugs still affecting his movement.

"Where…" he ground out. "We've been captured?"

Eagle nodded grimly. Fox was curled up in the corner, and Snake was still out cold; he noticed with no small amount of contempt that the unconscious man's head was resting on Eagle's thigh as he slept. They weren't going to be comfortable for a long time, he thought, so there was no use getting used to it now.

"It's nothing sinister," he said, his voice suggesting that he was telling anything but the truth, "Just a bit of RTI."

Alex shuddered. No matter how well meaning the intentions behind RTI, it wasn't the same as what you'd have to endure during the real thing. He hugged his knees close to him, and Eagle raised an eyebrow.

"Where's Wolf?"

Eagle shrugged.

"They took him away an hour or so ago. He'll be back soon." He didn't seem worried or apprehensive. It spoke volumes about the man's character… or inexperience.

Alex could do nothing else but wait. It was with this thought in his mind that he rolled back onto his side and waited for sleep.

ARARARARAR

Sleep would not come to Alex Rider. The light was too bright. He'd never been subject to sleep deprivation before, but as he recalled RTI as being only 36 hours long it wouldn't be that bad, he reasoned, and he resigned himself to watching the second hand on his watch ticking away – watching the time pass as he waited for his turn.

Wolf returned and Eagle left. Eagle returned and Snake left. Both Eagle and Wolf were worse for wear, but with bruises and scrapes and less cheerful attitudes – nothing worse.

The better part of an hour passed. Fox woke up. Snake returned and Fox left. Snake, Wolf and Eagle could be heard muttering in their corner and glancing at him occasionally. Alex didn't listen. Ian had taught him to conserve his strength whenever possible in these – 'hypothetical', he said – situations, and without sleep on his side he had slipped into a catatonic state of meditation. Snake shouting at him shook him from his daze.

"Whaa–?"

Snake rolled his eyes; their faces all gave away their thoughts – _typical rich kid_.

"Listen, Cub," Wolf said, his voice harsh. "This is important. You can't fuck this up. If one person in this group gives in we _all_ get binned, even if they're an idiot school kid like you. Don't think they'll go easy on you because of your age."

_They won't,_ Alex thought grimly. _ Most of the time they'll treat me worse because of it._

Alex's thoughts almost moved back to his previous entrapments but he wasn't allowed to – the door to their cell was thrown open and a struggling Fox was escorted back in, panicked. Alex was being grabbed violently, and as he was manhandled out of the cell, he heard Fox shout at him.

"Don't tell them anything, Cub – they know who you are!"

A deep-seated feeling of dread rolled through his body.

ARARARARAR

"Name."

The light was blinding.

"My name is Cub."

The burly man accompanying his interrogator backhanded him. He rolled with the slap; his chair rocked backwards from the hit.

"Name."

"My name is Cub." Alex was defiant.

"We know who you are, _Alex Rider._ Tell me what your name is."

"You're not authorised–"

Mind games. Alex hated mind games.

"My name is Cub."

A punch to the stomach winded him.

"Tell me your name, Alex. That's all I want!"

Alex couldn't answer even if he wanted to, winded as he was.

"You refuse to answer? Fine. I'll ask your friends."

"They're not my friends."

"Then you won't mind me hurting them."

"They don't know anything."

"I don't believe you."

Shit. He'd brought this on himself. There was no getting out of this, and there was no reason for those poor SAS men to atone for his sins.

"Why am I here?"

The interrogator smiled. He was extremely attractive, but the smile made Alex's blood run cold in fear.

"Tell me your name and I might reward you."

"My name…" he said slowly, "is Cub." The punch aimed at him broke his nose. It was a clean break, something that he'd be thankful for later.

"You can't–"

The man sneered at him, sarcasm dripping off his tongue like poison.

"Accidents happen."

It was then he pulled out the taser. Alex grit his teeth and waited for the pain to come. It always did.

ARARARARAR

When Alex's limp body was thrown unceremoniously into the cell an hour or so later his unit was surprised to see blood dripping from his nose but not overly concerned – they all had their various bumps and bruises, after all – however they were fairly surprised when Alex fell to the floor where he'd been thrown and remained there, unmoving. It was Snake who spoke first.

"…Cub?" No answer. "You okay?"

The figure on the ground shifted, before grinding out: "Fuck me, I hate tasers." Eagle snickered in the background, while Snake looked more concerned.

"They used tasers on you? So soon?" He shook his head in disgust. "Are you okay?"

Cub brushed off his sympathy, shaking out his legs.

"I'm fine. Nothing I haven't dealt with before." He quickly shifted his attention to Ben. "Fox," he asked, "What kinds of things do these RTI trainers tend to ask you about?" Fox looked at him funnily. They hadn't interacted civilly for the past month, but he supposed that in the heat of things they were bound to band together as a group.

"Well," Fox began, weighing his words as he spoke, as if trying to get a point across while skirting around the subject delicately, considering their company. "This is meant to be training you for whatever you're likely to come across, so if you were party to more sensitive information, you'd be interrogated during this exercise as if they were trying to get that from you." He paused. "Or so I'd imagine."

Alex thought about this.

"What did they ask you about, then?"

All four of the SAS men answered him at the same time.

"You."

Eagle was staring at him, calculatingly. Alex realised in some small, distant part of his brain, that his nickname had some grounding in reality – the man was frighteningly perceptive and Alex knew he'd make trouble about this revelation.

"So, Alex…"

He was right.

"The question is… Why would these lovely men here be asking us about you – and only you – during this exercise, huh? They must think that would be something we'd have to stand up against at some point in the future, but why would that be?"

Alex shifted where he sat, uncomfortable. It wasn't _fair_, he wanted to say, that he'd just been interrogated for an hour only return for a second round courtesy of his own damn unit.

Not that he'd say that. He was too professional, so he just breathed in, exhaled out his pent up frustration and answered his unit with all the calm and collection of a Buddhist monk.

"It does seem rather strange, Eagle, I'll admit. However, wouldn't we, as a group, look strange to attacking forces? I'm sure that whoever captured us would assume I was an asset to your group considering the irregularity of our arrangement, and would interrogate you accordingly." He flexed his toes absently as he spoke, trying to get rid of the feeling of phantom shackles around his ankles. He heard Wolf snort as he described himself as an asset, and briefly considered throwing up a middle finger, and idea he threw out of his mind as swiftly as it had entered. He looked at his watch – only 30 hours left. He wondered why he even had a watch. Who took away someone's shoes but left him or her a watch? It wasn't like he even had tungsten shoelaces whereas the watch he was wearing was full of gadgetry he could use to escape – not that he would, as this exercise was about endurance rather than escapology.

He wasn't even sure if he'd be able to bring himself to try to escape – the word burnt into the sole of his foot reminded him of every escape attempt he had made that had gone wrong.

The cold seeped into his bones, and a shiver wracked his spine. He'd been essentially kidnapped in his sleep, brought in wearing only a pair of boxers and an oversized t-shirt. He was sure that was part of their plan as well – sexual, or at least social, humiliation. It was working, too. He'd hidden most of his scars from his unit before, but now, wearing next to nothing, his past injuries were on display for all to see, and he almost couldn't bear to see the disappointment on their faces as he tried to pass them off again as mere gang violence.

He stared at the word on the bottom of his foot, shaking. As much as he tried to maintain calm, at times like this he grew ever more apprehensive about the future. Some doctors had told him it was an anxiety disorder. He thought differently. You couldn't do what he had and **not** be anxious about everything.

Again, it was Snake who noticed Alex staring at the sole of his foot as if it contained the answers to the world. He leaned over his shoulder.

"What's up, Cub?"

Before Snake could react, Cub had flinched away, an open palm heading straight for his ear – one which Cub, thankfully, managed to pull back at the last moment, overbalancing before hunkering down into an uneasy squat. He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Athlete's foot."

"Eew, gross!" Wolf had decided to listen in on the conversation at that point, drawn in by Alex's small display of skill. "And we're all bare-foot. Great. Just what we all needed – a healthy dose of foot fungi in captivity." He raved on in the background, but Alex and Snake stayed stock still, staring into each other's souls.

Snake had been the scar. He didn't know what it was, he didn't know what it said, but he'd seen it, and his eyes told Alex he'd drag the others into it as well.

Alex looked down at his watch.

Twenty-nine and a half hours to go.

* * *

><p><strong><em>I felt really guilty doing such a short chapter for you all, and I had wanted to make it longer in the first place, so after a (decidedly un)healthy dose of painkillers and a good night's sleep I practically doubled the length of this chapter for you all. Sadly, I won't be able to update until Wednesday next well, but for a very good reason - that reason being that I'm going to LAHNDAAN to go to comicon there because I'm awesome like that. I'l be able to reply to reviews, maybe, but not update.<em>**

**_To people that reviewed the woefully short chapter before, if you are so inclined to review again feel free to PM me or do it anonymously or whatnot. That aside, I hope you all enjoy it immensely, and I shall talk to you all soon! Thanks again to all my wonderful reviewers who've sent me the loveliest messages ever wishing for me to get better. If I could hug you all rest assured that I would._**


	6. There's No

**Chapter Five – "There's No-"**

He couldn't sleep. None of them could. While that luckily left him with a distinct absence of nightmares, it also left him lacking no small amount of sanity. Alex's lone ranger stunt at the Beacons had left him tired as it was, and running on two hours' sleep as he was, the frayed relationships with his unit was trying to say the least.

_At least,_ he thought, _none of them have tried to talk to me yet._ It didn't cross his mind that talking about his situation might have made the situation better, not yet. He'd become increasingly jaded over the years, and knew deep down that trusting anyone would inevitably lead to deep emotional pain. He wasn't afraid of pain – far from it – but he failed to see the point in inflicting more on himself when his enemies could take care of that for him. The crippling loneliness hardly bothered him any more, tempered as it was by the satisfaction he felt at his (admittedly flawed) plan's success. However, his moment of peace was shattered by exactly what he'd been avoiding all this time: concerned teammates.

Snake, as the only one who had seen his foot, was the first to approach him.

"Cub," he started, the halting upwards inflection making him sound uncertain. "Are you okay?"

Alex nodded jerkily, trying to keep his cover.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Snake looked at him askance.

"Why wou— Alex, you do realise what's happening to us, right? I mean, we're doing RTI training… It's pretty damn normal for someone to be 'not alright' in this situation."

Alex scoffed, a human reaction he would have curbed had he been less tired, or depressed.

"Well, I'm not exactly normal am I?"

Snake looked him in the eye before dropping his gaze and sighing.

"I guess so…" His eyes flickered from the wall to stare at Alex's mutilated body. "It does look as if you've had some experience with…" He floundered for a diplomatic term. "This kind of thing before."

Alex laughed, hollow, an action so rare that it caught the others' attention immediately, and Snake noticed Eagle, Fox and Wolf all paying a lot less attention to what they were doing before and a lot more to the conversation he was having. However, when Cub didn't answer him immediately, he pushed for more information.

"That looks like a nasty scar there," he said conversationally, gesturing to Alex's knee. "Childhood accident? I got a few like that when I was a kid."

Alex's smile was grim.

"I hope you didn't get hurt _quite_ like this, considering it's from a kneecapping. I guess you could call it a childhood accident, though, considering I was still only 15 when it happened."

K-Unit looked at him with various expressions of shock on their faces. Surprisingly, it was Wolf who spoke this time.

"Jesus, Cub, you were training with that the first time round? You could have told us, we would've helped you, dammit!"

Alex threw him a confused look.

"Of course I wasn't. How old do you guys think I am?"

K-Unit looked around at each other, wondering. Snake decided to use Alex's sudden openness to find out everything he could.

"Well, how old are you?"

Alex didn't hesitate to tell him.

"Sixteen."

"You— wait, what?"

He didn't stop and think through the haze that had descended over his mind that revealing all this wouldn't be the greatest idea; neither did he question how lucid he felt at the time. In fact, nobody noticed how strange Cub's sudden reveal of his past was until their interrogator interrupted them.

"Alex!" The man sounded more delighted than anyone had any right to be in this situation, Alex thought. "How're you doing?"

"I'd be doing a lot better if you'd let me out of this fucking cell you annoyingly handsome man."

Eagle stifled a snort.

"Excellent, it looks like the truth drug we gave you in your water is working, Alex."

Alex looked set to tell the man exactly what he thought of him, but his mouth was quickly covered by a gloved hand, which he promptly bit into. He moved to kick the man holding him, but he was struck in the neck, rendering him unconscious.

The handsome man waited for the guards to leave with Alex.

"What happens to you now… Your future, like so many others', depends entirely on the actions of one boy – Alex Rider. How's that for a comforting thought?"

With that ominous thought lingering in the air, he left.

ARARARARAR

When he came to, Alex was slumped in a metal chair behind a metal table, both of which were screwed in to the floor. They didn't trust him not to hurt them.

The interrogator, who was sitting opposite him, was really quite beautiful.

"You have lovely cheekbones," he said, staring at him pensively. "They remind me of someone I used to know…"

The other man laughed, and it tinkled like piano keys, melodic and pretty. His hands were clasped in front of his mouth, on which a smile played innocuously.

"Now, Alex," the man said, his voice calm and measured. "I'm afraid I've been somewhat rude not introducing myself. My name is Anton. You are, of course, Alex Rider."

Alex frowned. He remembered something to do with that name… He wasn't supposed to reveal it. He shook his head.

"S'not 'Lex," he pushed out in a drug-induced slur. "I'm Cub."

"Of course it is, Alex." The other man smiled at him indulgently. "The thing is, Alex… Well, I have reason to believe that you could be useful to me. **Very** useful to me. You see, you have something one of my… associates wants. Or rather, you _are_ what one of my associates wants, and there's nothing I enjoy more than having what others can't."

"I… don't…"

The smile fell from the other man's face.

"Of course you don't, Alex." He rose to his full height. Alex would have stood, tried to defend himself, if he hadn't been handcuffed to the chair where he sat. "I'll ask you this now, Alex, and if I get a proper answer first time around I won't have to hurt you."

He took a deep breath and moved around the table until he was uncomfortably close to Alex.

"Now tell me… What exactly is your relationship to Yassen Gregorovitch?"

Alex remembered his nightmares and looked to the side, angry.

"I hate him."

The other man looked surprised, almost amused.

"You… hate him."

Alex nodded.

"See, Alex… Our sources say he seems to be very fond of you." He stared at Alex intently. "Some might say… possessive." On this word he snatched up Alex's right foot, bending his leg at a near-impossible angle to inspect its sole. On it was burnt one word.

"мой, Alex. Do you know what that means?"

Alex nodded, refusing to look this man in the eye. Anton, however, grabbed him by the jaw, forcing them to make eye contact.

"It means… That he is very fond of you indeed, which makes you very useful to me."

Alex's face screwed up in concentration, thinking not being exactly easy for him drugged as he was.

"Wait—then… this isn't RTI training?"

"Heavens, no!" Anton faked a look of surprised, and stroked an imaginary beard as he talked. "Although now you know, there's no need to keep your supposedly-not-friends alive to perpetuate the cover."

"NO!" Alex had shouted the word out before he could think about the consequences.

"No? Well then, I suppose I could keep them here, but I couldn't guarantee that I could keep your cover… or keep them fed."

Anton made to walk away, but was stopped by a surprisingly strong hand gripping into his trouser leg. He turned around, barely managing to keep the scowl off his face. When he looked down, though, it was to see the sixteen year old looking up at him coyly through thick, long lashes. Alex's hands, now that he was sure he had Anton's attention, moved up and down slowly, caressed miniscule circles into the other man's thighs as he forced a blush to grace his cheeks.

"Surely," he said, his words husky with faked yet alluring wantonness, "There's something I can do to… change your mind." The other man was still standing, and Alex shifted forwards in his seat until he was close enough to nuzzle the man, which he did. Anton closed his eyes, and sighed out a long, hot breath before replying.

"I'm sure there is."

Alex took the initiative, and moved to remove the man's belt with his teeth. It was only after he undid his zip, once he was fully committed to saving his unit, that he heard the man's condemning words, half panted, half moaned as they were.

"Remember to smile, Agent Rider. You're on camera."

* * *

><p><strong><em>Sinister or what? And this, my friends, is why I rated it M. Like I promised, nothing too descriptive slashy, but more dark and sinster and just... Yeah. Anyway. I hope you enjoyed it, I'm sorry it took so long but like I said I was in London up until yesterday.<em>**

**_Hope you all liked it, and if you haven't read the second half of Chapter 4 that I put up then please do. Apart from that, I really hope you enjoy this, because I really enjoyed writing it. Anyway, tell me what you think! Hopefully you'll like it as much as I do!_**

**_OH, and also preemptively, there's a reason I'm not revealing what мой means, but if you want to know _**_now** rather than later then google it. I just think that knowing now will take away some of the tension from the story.**_

**_EDIT: Man, I am SO embarrased, you wouldn't even believe. The word on the bottom of Alex's foot here was transliterated rather than translated and that's due to my faults entirely. That and google translate. So I apologise for that._**


	7. One

**Chapter Six – "One"**

Four thousand miles away in Cuba, Yassen Gregorovich was not happy. Alex had been taken from him not two months ago, and it pained him to see another man… enjoying Alex's company. Yassen prided himself on his diplomacy and level-headedness, but his heart shuddered to a halt for a second as he re-wound and re-watched the tape.

Alex looked up at him from the TV set, staring straight into his soul, mocking him.

"_I hate him."_

In a rare act of rage, Yassen threw the TV remote at the screen. It bounced off, harmless against the old technology. The man who'd sent him the videotape hadn't bothered to hide his face, and whether or not that was intentional he didn't care. He recognised the man, vaguely; it wasn't that he'd met him before, but he shared a similar bone structure with a man he used to know… He broke off from his thoughts, concentrating instead on the opportunity to get Alex back. He had no suspicions that it would be a trap by the British – shameless as they might be, even they had morals enough to stop before teaching an underage boy the art of seduction. That had been SCORPIA's work. Assuming that MI6 had no idea where Alex was, it would be easy enough to follow the tracker signal being emitted from the chip in every SCORPIA member's skull. It would then be a simple matter of breaking into whatever facility Alex was being held in, breaking him out and leaving no survivors. Yassen sighed deeply, before reaching for a pair of thick-framed reading glasses and logging in to his laptop. It was time to make a few… arrangements.

ARARARARAR

_Life,_ Alex realised as he was dragged by some henchmen through the labyrinths of pathways leading towards their cell,_ looks a lot different with a pool of rapidly cooling spunk spattered across your chest._ He wondered briefly why he felt so _guilty_ about doing what he did – what needed to be done – but reached the cell before he could reach any kind of conclusion, quickly wiping himself down to the best of his ability. One of the guards, seeing his attempt to rid himself of the evidence of his interrogation, sneered at him before pushing him into the cell none too gently. He was greeted by the worrying sight of the whole of K-Unit staring at him. He rubbed at his neck self-consciously. Eagle moved to talk to him.

"Alex—"

At this Cub span around to stare at him, a crazed look in his eye.

"How the fuck do you know my name?" he spat.

Eagle eyed Alex up, taking in the slightly dilated pupils and his readiness to pounce before speaking slowly and reassuringly.

"The man who took you away – he told us."

If Eagle had been trying to calm Alex down he failed miserably; Alex's face cycled past neutral to look _sad_, an emotion that K-Unit had yet to see Alex display despite their constant ribbing. Alex suddenly spun to look at Fox, who was again resting in the corner of the room.

"Fuck." Alex stumbled to the other side of the room until he was centimetres away from the other man before grasping at his shirt, the overwhelming, crippling loneliness of the past few months suddenly catching up with him. "Fox, they know."

Fox looked up to make eye contact with Wolf, who looked ready to kill. He started to mouth at him: _No, don't come over,_ but Wolf had already gripped Alex by the back of his shirt, ripping him away from Fox violently before getting way too close for comfort, mimicking his interactions with Fox just a second ago.

"All right, you little punk." Snake had moved to hold Wolf back in case he decided to get violent, but held back. "They _know?_ I swear, if you told them **anything** that would get us binned—"

"_This isn't fucking RTI!_" Alex wailed, hugging himself desperately. Had he remembered enough of this conversation later through his drug-addled memory he would have been embarrassed, or even ashamed, but at the time he couldn't bring himself to care. "They _**know**_!"

Ben was the only person in the room to understand the implications of those two small words. While the other men were asking him frantically "what do you _mean_ this isn't RTI?" in various manners, he collected his thoughts.

"Alex," he asked, his voice as calm as could be. "What exactly does he _know_?"

Apparently that was a bad question to ask.

"_**Everything!**_" he wailed, distraught. "Every single _fucking_ thing about me! MI6, SCORPIA, Yassen **FUCKING** Gregorovich!" He sobbed pathetically into his shirt for a moment, revealing more scars around his waist than he would have cared to in other circumstances. He looked up, suddenly, seeing Fox's pale face, along with the shocked expressions of K-Unit, and added hurriedly, "Don't worry, though, Fox. They either don't know about you or don't care. You're safe." He paused. "All of you."

"I'm so tired."

ARARARARAR

Alex was out cold.

Wolf was the first to speak.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Eloquent as always, Wolf, although I agree. What the _fuck_ was that?"

Fox shot Eagle a look, before sighing and getting more comfortable on the concrete floor.

"I suppose none of you know why Alex is training with us."

Wolf snorted.

"You mean other that the fact that he has rich parents with connections in the military?"

Fox shot him A Look.

"Alex… I'm going to feel terrible for telling you all this, but you need to know this so we can all work together to get out of here alive." He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. It didn't work. "Alex… doesn't have any parents." Suddenly Wolf didn't seem so angry any more, he looked cowed rather than anything. "Neither is he some drug dealer or a member of a gang. He's actually the UK's first child agent, and not only that but he's MI6's best agent full stop."

Wolf stared at him for a second, opening his mouth to talk but Eagle beat him to it.

"You're taking the piss."

"I am not."

"You must be."

"I assure you, I'm not."

"You m—"

"That actually kind of makes sense."

It had been Wolf who interrupted them. Eagle stared at him, nonplussed, for a moment while Snake, who had been listening on the sidelines, entered the conversation.

"How so?"

Wolf shook his head, thinking back.

"You guys remember that one mission I went to at Point Blanc?" They all nodded to the affirmative, so Wolf moved on with his story, shifting to avoid the pins and needles shifting into his leg. "Well, you know the inside guy I said we had? It was _Cub._ I mean Alex."

Fox interrupted him.

"Call him Cub. We're in enemy territory, even if the enemy does already know his name."

Wolf nodded.

"Right. So, anyway, _Cub_ was the inside man. Well, I say man, I mean–"

"Get on with it, Wolf."

"Right, yeah, course. But _Cub._ You wouldn't believe the things he did! He snowboarded down the mountain on a piece of ironing board while being shot at with fully automatic machine guns, exploded a helicopter by way of a snowmobile before throwing himself into the path of an oncoming train straight into a barbed wire fence!" He looked at his hands for a second, letting the words sink in. "I had a lot of respect for him after that. I was willing to try him out properly this time, give him a chance to join the group… But he fucked it up. Why would he do that?" He looked at Fox. "You two seem to have some history behind you that you're not telling us about. Why?"

Fox sighed.

"Alex has been working alone for so long now that I don't think he knows how to do anything; being forced to work in a team with people who could turn around and backstab him… It scares him."

Snake cleared his throat awkwardly.

"What do we say when he wakes up?"

ARARARARAR

Back in Cuba, Yassen Gregorovitch was in a slightly better mood. His negotiations with SCORPIA had proved most helpful; they seemed just as eager as him, if not more so, to get Alex Rider back in their possession and had even agreed to lend him one of their private small aircraft for the journey, only, that is, after the previous user had returned from their mission in one week's time. Yassen hadn't been happy about the wait, but a private plane was preferable to a commercial flight in terms of comfort and a lot more convenient for unauthorised travel. He pulled out one of Alex's button-up shirts from the time he'd spent on the island from a drawer at his desk and breathed in deeply. The scent on it was getting weak, but it still reminded him of the boy he wanted so dearly. Yes, it was weak, but it was enough. He'd have his Alex soon enough. All he had to do was wait.

_Be still, my Alex,_ he thought. _I am coming for you yet._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Wow. Not sure what to think about this chapter. I like it personally, but who knows what you people will think? Bear in mind when you read this that Alex has just dealt with some very... well, emotionally jarring activities, not to mention the fact that he's still under the influence of the truth serum, the nature of which I will be revealing to you in the next chapter or so.<strong>_

_**I've also gotten a small amount of complaints about the fact that there's slashy material here, and **__**I don't wanna sound ungrateful after all the time you've put into reading this story, but the story IS rated M now, meaning it'll be handling mature issues, and things like homosexuality, torture, abuse, coercion, sexual blackmail, etc will be RIFE. I can't stress that enough. I'm sorry, but in the end I'm not writing for anyone but myself, and I really want to push myself by writing in a mature way about mature issues. I'm sorry if slash isn't your thing, but at the moment I've not planned any graphic sex scenes, and the way I see it "slash" is more the portrayal of two characters of the same sex being together in a romantic way, whereas the scene I wrote into the end of the last chapter was meant to be a shocking exposé of the brutal underworld. Of course, and believe me that I mean this in the most sincere and least sarcastic way, if you're not ready to read about things like that, or just plain don't want to, feel free to not read my story, but I want to create a powerful piece of narrative which I can't do if I'm pandering to people's wishes not to be exposed to the harsh reality of the real world. Yes, this might sound scathing and unnecessarily mean, but to me I don't feel that this should be a problem to anyone reading my story from a mature perspective, and if it IS then the only real solution is to not read it, as I'm not going to change what I write about for anyone.**_

**_End of rant. To the rest of you lovely people, how was it? Did you like it? Did you notice any other spelling errors? My favourite so far has to have been "he stroked an imaginary bread". It made me chortle heartily. Anyway, my dears. Enjoy._**


	8. Left

**Chapter Seven – "Left"**

Alex had been having a lot of chances to become intimately acquainted with the floor recently. He expected, when he woke groggily from his impromptu nap, that this would be one such experience, but was surprised by the lack of hard concrete underneath his head. He cracked an eye open warily, half afraid of what he'd see, half hiding from the light, to be treated to an excellent view up Fox's nose.

"Fox," he croaked. Ben's head snapped down, and an expression of utter relief greeted him. This surprised Alex, and he said the only thing he could think of to ruin this overly tender moment. "This is really gay."

Ben shoved Alex off his lap without a moments' hesitation, who gracefully cracked his head on the floor, wincing. He rubbed at his skull, hissing as he hunkered down into a ball. Minutes passed before he could un-grit his teeth.

"Well, this is awkward."

"It wasn't until you said that, Snake."

Bless Snake and Eagle, with their (arguably) witty repartee to lighten the situation.

"What's awkward? I mean, apart from me passing out just now?"

Snake laughed, but it was fake and stilted; he could hear it was as well, so he cut it short.

"Why didn't you tell us about your job, Cub?"

Alex stilled suddenly before looking up, cornered.

"How do you know about that?"

He heard Wolf grumble from his distant position about how that was just so fucking smooth, Snake, but he wasn't listening. Snake shifted awkwardly as Alex stared him down, before Fox coughed, bringing Cub's attention to him.

"You kind of told them yourself. I just… elaborated a little bit."

Alex looked at Ben, assessing him for anything that would suggest the tiniest hint of insincerity.

"Oh _fuck_ you, Fox," Alex spat, the anger and bitter sense of betrayal palpable in every word. "You of _all_ people should know how hard it is to keep up your cover around people you know. How _could_ you?"

Fox looked insecure as he answered.

"Look, Cub, this is really the wrong time to be angry about this – we've been captured and we really nee—"

"Wait, we've what? I thought this was RTI?"

"Stop pissing us around, Cub," Wolf spat, rounding on him, as he was wont to do. "You told us yourself, before you passed out like some pussy."

"But I just woke… up…" Alex's tongue felt dry and heavy in his mouth and his thinking was still fuzzy; looking around, everything around him was still the slightest bit out of focus, almost as if he was drunk. "Shit." The sudden realisation hit him with all the force of, ironically, a freight train running into a barbed wire fence. "They doped me."

Snake didn't really help matters by telling him that it had been a truth drug. All they heard from Cub for the next few minutes was the repeated whispered mantra of "oh fuck, oh god, oh man".

K-Unit stared at him for a while before drifting into their own conversation.

"What do you think that was about?" Eagle asked, in a moment of uncharacteristic stupidity. Fox fixed him with A Look before replying.

"He's an MI6 agent and they just gave him a truth serum. You figure it out."

Eagle looked as if he had been about to say something either ridiculously profound, or idiotic, but Alex chose this moment to surface from his panic attack.

"I'm not _just_ an MI6 agent." The unit broke off from their conversation to stare at Cub, who was sitting on the floor hugging his knees to his chest. "You worked with me before, Fox, so you know what kinds of high-ranking missions I got at fourteen. Now…" He took a deep breath. "Apparently I'm the only thing keeping this world turning, and they just gave me a truth drug _and I don't remember __**any of it!**__"_

He forced himself to calm himself down, eventually returning to the breathing techniques he'd been taught on Malagosto. Nobody had spoken, stunned by what he'd said. Alex was the one who broke the silence.

"We have to assume the worst." At the silence that followed this, he continued. "These people could be anyone, wanting anything, and if we assume the worst-case scenario we're more likely to survive."

"Well," Wolf began, surprising them all that he would speak first. "What do you think the worst-case scenario is?"

Alex didn't even take a second to answer him.

"SCORPIA." He paused, weighing up the rest of his answer. "At best, they'd kill you all and make an example of me through a televised execution. Worst case would be something along the lines of taking me captive and torturing me until I give them all the information I've accrued over the years to basically hold the world at it's mercy." He paused again, dragging his thoughts back from the darkest recesses of his mind, where he kept his memories of his previous entrapment. "Or something like that."

"What do you suggest we do?" Fox knew when to bow down to a superior intellect. This was one of those times. Alex stared down at his feet, deep in thought. Eventually he broke the silence the room had fallen into.

"We wait. We will persevere. Think of it as RTI, _treat_ it like RTI, and then when they are sure we have lost our will to fight – our will to live – we will break free." Of course, he was lying. He didn't plan to let his unit – and despite all the animosity there was between them, he did still think of them as _his_ unit – be tortured at the hands of his captives while his heart was still beating, which was lucky really, considering that was what he was going to have to stop in order to break free.

The bastards had taken his watch while he'd been asleep, he'd noticed. He could have kicked himself; they'd allowed him a chance to escape, and he'd been so willing to believe that all was well despite all the signs pointing to the contrary that he'd lost that chance. Without the emergency signalling device on his watch, all he had left was the pacemaker he'd had Smithers install.

Truth be told, he hadn't really needed a pacemaker. Although his heart had been significantly weakened by the bullet – although to be fair, whose wouldn't have been? – he'd been told that he was young enough to recover fully without the need of any technical assistance. However, his paranoia had prevailed and he'd had Smithers conjure up a rather ingenious device: a pacemaker that not only kept his heart running when needed but also sent an SOS signal to MI6 whenever it kicked in so that they could send someone along to pick up the body. In theory, all Alex needed to do was induce a heart attack, or just die for a few seconds, in order for the magical pacemaker to do its work, and Smithers' theory had never failed him. So far.

* * *

><p><strong><em>So, yeah. I'm aware it's really short, but I had more on here and it didn't really fit the flow of the chapter, so it went onto the beginning of the next one. I just thought that was a really good cut-off point. And yes, it's been ages, I know, but I had a thought and got really carried away with it. I suddenly thought "OH MY GOD I HAVE TO MAKE THIS INTO A MANGA" so I made a page of that, which has taken me about 2 days so far and it's not even done yet. FML. I've got a preview of it for you though, if you want it. Would you be interested in reading a comicmanga version alongside this?_**

**_Apart from that, did you enjoy this little bit? Was a little bit sad about the lack of response to the last chapter; I guess I scared everyone away with the content. Oh well. Also, people who reviewed last time and haven't got a reply yet - I'm replying now so don't worry yourself about that. You'll get one some time tonight. ;)_**


	9. For Us

**Chapter Eight – "For Us"**

The cloth was wet over his face. It clung desperately to his skin, draping into his open mouth gasping for air. It blocked his nostrils with the foul-smelling damp as he choked on the air he was allowed during a brief respite. He sucked it in greedily, choking again on more water as it was poured onto him. When the cloth was pulled off his face, seemingly hours later, he gasped, wheezing in all the precious oxygen he could manage. Anton's impressive visage loomed over him.

"I can stop this all, Alex." His tormentor's face was framed by the obscenely bright light behind him, silhouetting him, surrounding him with a halo of holy light glinting off of his hair. "All you have to do…" he played absently with the bindings holding Alex to the soaking wet board he was tied to, reminding him all too well of his previous captor. He turned his head away from Anton, unwilling to look at him, but Anton grasped his chin and forced eye contact on him. "All you have to do, Alex… Is give yourself up to me."

Alex blinked at him in surprise.

"Wait, I- uh, you what?"

Anton laughed into the room, genuine amusement colouring his features with an attractive rosy tint.

"Come now, Alex. Don't let's play shy after what we shared previously."

Alex was considerably confused now, and shot Anton a sideways glance.

"Umm, right." He would have usually crossed his arms right now, but as he was strapped to this table at the moment he just struggled for a moment. "So, I have no idea what you want from me. I thought you were torturing me for information?" At the extended silence he received after this statement, he tacked another on to the end. "That's what everyone else does."

Anton sized him up for a moment, before a sneer set into his face, and he set off into a corner of the apparently multipurpose room to shift through some things before coming back to Alex's size, patting him on the arm reassuringly.

"I forget that SP-117 does not allow you to remember our… chat." He untied Alex and sat him up on the table, keeping a gun trained on him at all times. "Luckily for you, I've got video evidence of what happened. Let's take a looksee, shall we?" Alex nearly groaned. If he'd given anything up… It didn't really bear thinking about.

His attention shifted to the 90s-era CRT TV Anton had switched on, and the VCR whirred to life. A grainy image, obviously from a wall-mounted camera somewhere in the room, flickered into existence on the screen, and he saw it was he and the other man in this very same room. The timestamp in the corner indicated they'd been lost to civilisation for 2 days now; not nearly long enough for anyone to be seriously looking for them. In the image Anton was pacing close to where he was handcuffed to a chair, which Alex thought was rather stereotypical. He focused on what Anton was saying to him, and although the sound quality was tinny he could just make out what the other man said to him.

"_The thing is, Alex… Well, I have reason to believe that you could be useful to me. __**Very**__ useful to me. You see, you have something one of my… associates wants. Or rather, you are what one of my associates wants, and there's nothing I enjoy more than having what others can't."_ Alex stared at the screen, mind blank, not processing the images coming through. So they _didn't_ want him for information, but were rather passing him onto someone else who did? His mind whirred into action, thinking up plans and contingency plans and then suddenly, one line the on-screen Anton caught his attention in an instant. _"…now you know, there's no need to keep your supposedly-not-friends alive to perpetuate the cover."_ Before he knew it, he was watching himself sucking the other guy off.

"Oh, dude," he choked on his words, unwilling to watch yet mesmerised, unable to look away. "That's low."

Anton laughed once, a long, sharp sound piercing his ears; mocking.

"You say that now, dearest Alex, but it was you who suggested it."

Alex opened his mouth to protest, but was cut short by the older man.

"Nuh-uh-uh!" He rewound the tape, and turned up the volume. Alex could hardly hear his voice through the crackling audio, but what he did head made him cringe.

"_Surely there's something I can do to… change your mind."_ Damn SCORPIA and damn their fucking seduction training to hell. He continued cursing SCORPIA and every single MI6 operative he'd ever met as Anton's hand traced its way along his jaw-line before resting on his shoulder, which was suddenly in a vice-like grip.

"On your knees."

Alex gaped, which in hindsight was a terrible idea as his mouth was quickly occupied with the business end of Anton's gun.

"_**I said on your knees!**_"

Alex stared up at him before slowly yet somehow inelegantly lowering himself to the floor, all the time giving Anton a wide-eyed look that screamed "are you _crazy?_"

"Now, Alex, if I take the gun out of your mouth you're going to be a good boy and not end up with your brains plastered all over the wall, right?"

Alex nodded frantically, or as frantically as one could nod with a very live gun in their mouth anyway. In a very distant part of his mind he was hysterically realising that Anton was getting off over this power play, but right now all he could focus on was the cold metal of the gun shaft pressing against the roof of his mouth. Anton stared at him for a moment and, seemingly satisfied with the amount of raw terror in his eyes, slowly slid the gun out of his mouth, pants tightening all the while as he watched the oddly erotic sight.

"You're vile," Alex spat with all the venom he could muster up.

"And you're a slut," Anton conceded, nodding his head in a downwards gesture. "It's not going to suck itself."

Alex kept his gaze downwards, staring at the ground demurely, as he reached up to undo the other man's trousers and realised with a feeling of elation that his hands were unbound. In a split second he'd made his decision and acted upon it, slapping the gun out Anton's hand in a precise movement that spoke of years of practice and refinement, before throwing a high kick to his face. He felt something give slightly under his bare foot – most probably a recently fractured nose – and ran for the exit… the only exit, which was of course flanked on the other side by four guards, which Alex had been counting on. He burst through the door, slamming it into one of them on the way out, earning him another enemy. As he jogged down the hall, he could hear Anton screech after him.

"Catch that motherfucker! He broke my fucking nose!"

The guards all set after him, gaining on him quickly just like he'd planned. He tripped over a conveniently placed pile of nothing in the hallway, catching himself with one of his arms and from there delivering a kick into one of the fast-approaching guard's chests. He was slammed into the wall, wheezing as the air was pushed out of him by the powerful blow. The other guards quickly caught up and the next minute or so was lost to a flurry of flawlessly executed punches, kicks and open-handed palm strikes. One of the guards, sensing a losing battle, backed off and reached into a holster at his hip.

"Fuck this. Back off, guys."

They did, but not before Alex managed to land a blow on one of them below the belt. He fell to the ground, but as a last act of revenge pulled out his stun gun, firing it at point blank range over Alex's abused heart.

He barely felt the other taser hit him as his heart fluttered madly in his chest and his whole world turned black.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hey guys! I changed my name! I didn't really feel like Nya fit me any more, so I changed my name to Little Miss Lover, a la Jimi Hendrix.<strong>_

_**Don't worry though, I'm still me, albeit surprisingly late! I had another exam this morning and decided that I'd rather have good results than my chapters out as fast as they could be so I did some revision instead. I so smart!**_

_**What do you guys think? Like? No like? Let me know! Nothing makes me happier than seeing all of your reviews in my email box! Although I haven't gotten around to answering any from last time due to revision, so I'll answer all your questions at once if you review again, or if not then, well, I'll answer them anyway. Not like I'm going to hold it over your head or anything.**_

_**Probably no updates until after Tuesday now - that's my next, and last, exam, so please hold out till then! Then again, if I get enough reviews I might be able to cook something up over the weekend... ;)**_

_**Till then!**_


	10. To Blame

**Chapter Nine – "To Blame"**

He was floating, he realised belatedly, as he stared vacantly at first the insides of his eyelids and later the ceiling, which appeared to be glowing. A figure edged its way into his line of sight and he stretched luxuriantly before acknowledging them.

"Ben," he addressed the man from his resting place on, once again, the floor. "You're beautiful." The aforementioned man spluttered before the surrounding area burst into laughter. The sound was like a melody; the different timbres of each man's separate laugh harmonised to create a beautiful cacophony of sound. He wanted to hug himself.

"Uh, Alex?" Fox asked him. "Codenames, remember?"

Alex smiled at him beatifically.

"Nope."

Fox looked down at him, concerned. "Are you feeling all right, Alex?"

Alex grinned.

"Indubitably. I feel great. Better than ever. On top of the world, you might say!" As if to prove this, he jumped up from his position splayed on the floor into a grand pose. "This is my kingdom and you are my subjects!"

Snake and Fox exchanged glances.

"…He's been doped." Snake ground out. "_Again_." He looked over to where Alex appeared to be knighting a highly amused Eagle in one of the corners of their cell. He called out to him.

"Alex."

"Yes?"

"What actually happened out there?"

Alex turned and walked over towards him, beckoning Eagle to follow him across the two-meter trek to Fox's side.

"One took a taser to the heart. 'Twas but a flesh wound."

Silence overcame the room; Wolf, as he was wont to do, broke it.

"Sorry- you what?"

Alex looked at him; hands nestled in Eagle's hair, which he had started plaiting in the absence of conversation.

"I what?"

"You- wait, what?"

Fox shook his head.

"I'm confused."

"As am I," Eagle contributed, gently batting Alex's hands away from his hair that was too short to plait anyway. "As. Am. I."

They stared at Alex as one; his attention, however, had moved on to other, more important, things, such as the crack on the wall from which a certain type of moss grew. Snake sighed.

"I guess we're not getting anything more out of him until that wears off then."

Wolf shook his head, angry at the helplessness he felt.

"What do you reckon it is?"

"I don't know," Snake shrugged. "Painkillers? Morphine maybe." He didn't mention that Alex's attitude was nothing like what was brought on by morphine. He didn't want to imagine what other drugs they could have given him. He carded a hand through greasy hair, cursing MI6 to the seventh circle of hell for involving a sixteen-year-old child in their foolish machinations.

ARARARARAR

Alan Blunt was currently taking afternoon tea in the MI6 headquarters when he was interrupted, rather rudely in his opinion, by a knock on the door signalling an end to the modicum of peace he had found in his daily ritual. He sighed, and placed the delicate bone china teacup he had been nursing out of harm's way before calling for whoever was on the other side of the door to enter. It was Mrs Jones. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant bun which did nothing to flatter her face; she wore a drab brown pantsuit that had been carefully tailored to bring as little attention as possible to her womanly assets; her shoes were flat as opposed to the towering heels favoured by some of the desk jockeys and personal assistants she had seen in the building. In other words, Mrs Jones had carefully constructed her appearance to look plain. She looked neither attractive nor unattractive nor did she appear threatening. This was the look of a former field agent – a former spy. As such, she should have been able to hide her expressions more carefully, but as it was her lips were set in a small frown, worry etched across her forehead, reminding the world that she was not as inhuman as she – as MI6 – would make us believe.

"Tulip." Alan acknowledged her curtly, yet not unkindly. He reached for the delicate teapot, wordlessly offering her a cup – a peace offering. She had not approved of his letting Alex run himself into the ground nor their prior treatment of him.

"Alan." She nodded, and a cup of tea was passed to her post-haste, its pleasant aroma jarring with the harsh scent of the peppermints she chewed compulsively to keep down other habits. It was, she realised absently as she sipped at it demurely, Darjeeling – a delicate, floral tea which was incongruous with Alan Blunt's personality. They sat in silence for a precious few moments.

"I take it," Blunt said, finally setting his tea to the side, "That you're here for more than just to catch up."

"Of course." Mrs Jones nodded and set her cup down as well, smoothing out her trousers in a nervous gesture. "Alan, we recently got a distress signal from one of Smithers' devices."

"Oh?"

"It was from Alex."

A heavy pause weighed down the room.

"You don't think-"

"Gosh no, Alan. The boy may be a risk-taker but he's not suicidal."

"Of course."

Silence once again reigned as Blunt fumbled with a pack of rich tea biscuits.

"**Alan.**" Mrs Jones was rapidly losing patience. "Alex?"

"Yes, I suppose you're right. The snacks can wait until later. Now let's just pull up the tracking system."

A few minutes passed as Blunt's computer fired up some programme or other that would allow them to track the signal being made by Alex's pacemaker.

"Now let's just…" He paused again. "Hm. Tulip, are you _sure_ you saw Alex's distress signal?"

"Of course I did," replied Mrs Jones, indignant.

"Of course, of course. Well, whatever it was, it's gone now." He swivelled around the monitor so she could look at the screen.

"But I-"

"Now, Tulip," he said, placating. "I'm sure you did. However, the pacemaker only tells us if Alex's heart needs help. The boy is, after all, operating under extreme stress, at an SAS training camp no less."

"But-"

"Tulip. We shan't discuss this."

Mrs Jones pursed her lips yet looked away, resigned.

"Sir."

This was standard practice. That, Mrs Jones knew. However, it didn't stop a pit of worry from settling uncomfortably in the bottom of her stomach, a place where it would remain for far longer than she could have foreseen, gnawing relentlessly at her psyche. She dismissed it as unfounded, explaining away her doubts and overall ignoring the warning they call 'gut instinct'.

Unbeknownst to her, and indeed most of the rest of MI6, a group of the desk jockeys in their skyscraper heels and low-cut tops had just returned from a night out on the lash and a raging hangover, plus their usual incompetence, led to them completing paperwork at an even slower rate than usual. Lying, swamped, in an in-tray was a memo detailing the disappearance of K-Unit in military code, as more and more documents and files and forms awaiting signatures were piled on. Had Alan Blunt known this he would have been a lot more receptive to the idea of heading out to the coordinates Alex's tracker had given them. As it was, he refused to acknowledge that there was any problem internally. His department worked impeccably, and he wouldn't hear any different.

Besides, what's the point in being the head of an organisation if you can't hire some eye candy?

ARARARARAR

A protracted moan broke Wolf from his near-catatonic state of slumber.

"Fuuuuck." The same voice groaned. "Why… Dear lord, _why_ did you let me move about like that?"

Wolf sniggered.

"Because we like seeing you make an ass out of yourself."

The lights in the room had been dimmed to allow them to sleep; apparently Alex's antics had been annoying the guards enough that the chance of peace and quiet outweighed any desire to torture them with sleep deprivation. A shuffling sound could be heard, and then a sudden intake of breath.

"Shit," Alex muttered. "I do not remember that." Wolf could see more movement, and as he attempted to focus more on Alex he could see the boy laying on the floor with his head in Eagle's lap, who was sitting cross-legged, propped up against the wall. He was fiddling with his shirt or something from what he could tell. Suddenly, Alex cried out. "_Oh god_. Shitting fucking cock-sucking cum-gargling _wank-face_."

Wolf paled.

"What?"

Alex was panting heavily, his face scrunched up in pain.

"Wake up Snake." He groaned out breathily. Wolf scrambled to do so, shaking Snake, who lashed out at him half-heartedly, none-too-gently to wake him up. Snake was not pleased.

"Wolf," he growled out. "This is the first bit of sleep I've gotten in three days. If this isn't for a _really_ good reason, I'm going to _kill_ you."

"Alex is hurt."

Snake heaved out a long-suffering sigh, before moving to Alex's side.

"Of course you are," he sighed again. "You took a taser to the heart, you can't expect to be up to par right now." He looked at him inquisitively. "Frankly, I'm surprised you're still alive."

"'snot the taser that's the problem," Alex ground out around his clenched teeth. Breathing was difficult for him at the moment. After a long break filled with the rasping of his breathing, he spat out, with difficulty, "Cracked m'ribs." He caught his breath again. "Bastards must've laid into me while I was out. Think one of them's proper broken."

Snake's face set into a grimace as he slid the hem of Alex's shirt up over his torso, forgoing his compilation of brutal scars to touch his ribs gingerly, pressing down on each one awaiting response.

"One… two, three…" He worked his way downward, away from the bullet wound and its weird scar flesh that felt taut and unnatural under his fingers. "Seven… eight…"

Alex let out a pained hiss at his touch.

"Eight?" Snake enquired, pressing down on it again, harder this time.

"_Oh god_, that's the one." Alex's face contorted into a pained grimace as he replied, voice straining with the effort of coherent speech. Snake sighed and moved away from him, pulling the boy's shirt down as he went.

"It's definitely broken. There's nothing I can do though."

Alex cursed colourfully.

"You were wrong, though. It's not entirely broken. Just feels like a bad fracture. So yeah. Small mercies and such."

Alex looked very much like he wanted to tell Snake exactly where he could shove his small mercies.

"Well, fuck you all for letting me gallivant around in my fragile state." Wolf once again sniggered, and Alex scowled at him. "I probably did half of this myself."

Eagle and Fox were still asleep, and Snake told Alex as much.

"The best thing you can do right now is get some sleep, really. Who knows how much longer we'll be allowed to?"

Alex nodded, accepting this easily.

"Wait," he said suddenly. "How long was I out?"

Wolf answered him.

"Well I got taken away for about two hours, as did all the other guys here so in total you've been asleep at least eight hours? More likely nine."

"Oh."

He settled down, as if to sleep, before realisation suddenly hit him.

"Wait, you were taken in?"

"Yeah. Are you surprised?"

"What? No. Just… tired, is all."

He realised with a jolt that his 'escape attempt' had jeopardised K-Unit's safety. The shame and fury over what he'd pointlessly sacrificed weighed heavily on him, and the injustice he felt burnt through his veins, lancing him with ferocity to match, if not surpass, the pain of a few measly cracked ribs. He shuddered inwardly, a chill racing up his spine, and turned to face the wall as well as he could without getting a face-full of Eagle-crotch. His face burnt with outrage. K-Unit could never know.

ARARARARAR

Once again, four thousand miles away in Cuba, Yassen Gregorovich was not happy. In fact, the usually composed man was incensed, seething, _incandescent_ with rage. The device implanted in the skull of every SCORPIA member had recently exposed to him a rather disturbing fact, namely that Alex Rider's heart had stopped and could somebody please come and drop by to clean up the mess, thanks? His hands shook with barely concealed fury as he opened his laptop to write a strongly worded email to SCORPIA's heads.

Yassen knew that MI6 would have their own way of tracking the boy – whom he severely doubted was dead – and it was now, officially, a race against time. His hands flew over the keyboard making countless errors in their haste, which he uncharacteristically ignored. Alex Rider's life was at stake, and if Yassen Gregorovich would own Alex Rider even if he had to personally assassinate Alan Blunt himself.

* * *

><p><strong><em>WOW has it EVER been a long time? Betcha thought I wasn't gonna upload anything, huh. But don't worry. I'm totally continuing, but MAN A2-level Art is some intensive shit. We've got this concertina book and I've gotta go at the rate of like 4 pages of sketches and paintings and shit A DAY so that's taking up a lot of my time. But excuses aside, here's the chapter!<em>**

**_Before anyone's like "why's Alex such a retard in the first bit? wtf dude" on me, have you ever been hopped up on too many drugs? Not even illegal stuff but stuff that's legal, like accidentally *cough* overdosing on codeine or something like that. Trust me, when you've done that you really do act like that. I accidentally took like double dosage in Physics this one time and I was bouncing off the walls. And that, my friends, is why my physics teacher thought I was a druggie. But yeah._**

**_Uh, that aside... Sorry it's late again, hope you like it, and hopefully the jailbreak will be soon!_**

**_Love from (funnily enough) Little Miss Lover, AKA Nya~_**


	11. It's A Shame

**Chapter Ten – "It's A Shame"**

_The room was dark; almost pitch black. He recognised the hazy feeling of sedation with a frightening familiarity. He was back on the bed, its soft, sumptuous covers belying what had and would soon transpire. The comfort was lost on him, though – his arms were twisted behind and above him at a near-impossible angle, his muscles cramping wildly at the strain, and his lacerated back ached at the sheets' caress. His wrists were slick with blood and he could barely restrain the need to clean out the wounds, his obsessive tendencies hurting him more than even the coarse rope fibres irritating the dangerously deep wounds. He looked down across his mutilated body – naked, of course – towards where he knew his captor would be lurking at the foot of the bed._

"_Yassen," he spat out, lacklustre. He couldn't bring himself to muster up even the slightest amount of disdain for the man, fearing he could bring worse treatment upon himself from it. The man the word was directed to did nothing to acknowledge him. In the deepest recesses of his mind, he realised that he'd never actually seen the man who'd been torturing him… In fact, all he'd ever seen of him was a pair of hands and startling, icy-blue eyes. However, he did not know anyone else with those characteristics, so who else could it be?_

_The hands returned to play with his shackles, as they always did. A lone, cold finger reached to trace the aching brand on the sole of his foot; Alex arched up from the bed, straining to get away from this man's ministrations. However, his ankle caught in its restraint, and the man above him smirked as his eyes bore into him._

"_мой, Alex. Do you know what that means?"_

_Alex shook his head in denial; although he could guess at what it meant, he endeavoured to spurn all of Yassen's claims of possession. The disembodied voice chuckled, but the light of laughter did not grace his eyes; they instead remained cold and hard and calculating as they stared at him and he cringed, shying away, suddenly feeling very naked indeed._

"_Do not try to hide from me, Alex."_

_Alex obeyed._

"_мой.__ à__ moi. __m__ío. __δ__ικός μου. _لي. 私の物. _Mine. That is what you are, Alex."_

_With this, the man's eyes darkened as he moved lower to place a kiss on a particularly deep gouge on Alex's thigh – one which he had placed there himself._

"_You belong to me."_

ARARARARAR

Alex awoke with a gasp, although whether from the pain of memories or the pain of a cracked rib he couldn't quite decipher. He didn't have long to think on it, though, as within a minute of his awaking the door to their cell was flung open, and Wolf was thrown in unceremoniously. Thankfully, he'd managed to fall properly so as not to injure himself any further as the team leader looked terrible.

Alex gave him a once-over. Wolf was significantly worse-for-wear, with several bruises blossoming over his torso, the most impressive by far being the bruise creeping up over his neck.

"What happened to you?"

Alex barely needed to ask, but as much as he wanted to deny the position they were in he also wanted his suspicions confirmed. Wolf's raspy voice was really all the answer he needed.

"Fuckin' choked me," he wheezed out. Alex, while expecting this, raised an eyebrow.

"That's surely not a very effective method of torture…"

Wolf sat himself up more properly, leaning against the wall. He scanned a shifty eye over the sleeping forms of the rest of his team and, reassured that they were all in various states of sleep, beckoned Alex closer to him.

"Between you and me," he began, voice soft yet sinister, "I don't think they're looking to interrogate us any more."

They remained deadly silent for a moment, but internally Alex's thoughts were running at a mile a minute.

"Why… Why would you say that?" He eventually managed to choke out. Wolf looked at him, sombre, and replied, his voice grave.

"It's simple enough to see. Before when we were in there he was asking us all who is Alex Rider, how do you know Alex Rider, what is Alex Rider's relationship with yasha gregarablah blah blah, and now… Well, either one of us has caved – which I _highly_ doubt – or he has no use for us now because that session just now… He didn't ask me anything."

Alex frowned, desperately trying to find any reasoning that would mean that he hadn't jeopardised the safety of his team.

"Maybe he was trying to break your spirit?"

Wolf shook his head.

"It seemed… It seemed more like he was just doing it for the purpose of injuring me. Like he was sending a message."

Alex had no doubt that Anton was indeed sending a message to him. A warning.

"Wolf," he asked, agitated. "How long do you reckon it's been since I was… knocked out?"

Wolf tapped his chin as he thought.

"Maybe a day?"

"Fuck." He sighed explosively. "Well, there's that escape plan gone."

"We had an escape plan?" Wolf near-shouted at him, and Alex jumped back in surprise. "Why was I not informed of this?" Meanwhile, three very startled SAS members had been shocked from their slumber, and they eyed Wolf warily as he continued to rant on about how he was kept in the dark about everything, and that he should have some respect as the _team leader_. Thankfully, Alex cut him off before the rant could escalate into anything bigger.

"Relax, Wolf – I didn't tell anyone."

Eagle took this moment to joint he conversation.

"Somehow that doesn't fill me with confidence. Why do I have the feeling it's going to have been something that we wouldn't exactly approve of you doing?"

Alex sighed again, before crossing his arms.

"Look. It doesn't matter what I did or how I did it. All that matters is that I sent out a distress call to MI6 more-or-less a day ago and they still haven't responded, so all I can assume is that we're on our own here in terms of escaping this dump."

"You-" Fox started indignantly. "No, I'm not going to ask. But what about what you planned for before?"

Alex shook his head violently.

"We can't just sit around and do nothing. I was only happy for that to happen before because I _hoped_ that MI6 would reply to my distress signal, I really did. However, in light of that – and some other information I've received – we're going to have to concoct some other kind of break-out."

Snake frowned at this, and interjected.

"Other information?"

"He's trying to kill us."

Alex sighed.

"Tact, thy name is Wolf."

"He's trying to what?" Eagle cried, and Alex resisted the urge to face-palm.

"You're all safe for the moment," he said, trying to calm them down. "It looks like he's going for the long and protracted route to rub it in my face that I've royally fucked up."

Unsurprisingly, this didn't help the mood at all.

"Great," Snake replied, voice caustic, "So now instead of being killed quickly and just having done with it we get all the fun stretched out for days on end! Joy!"

Alex shifted guiltily where he was sitting, and stared down at his feet. He absent-mindedly traced the sole of his right foot.

"Look, guys. This is all my fault. The next time I get called out, I'll make this right."

Wolf, of all people, opened his mouth to object, but as luck would have it the doors were once again flung open, and as the guards rounded on Fox, Alex stepped into their path.

"Get out of the way, kid. Anton's not interested in you right now, not after last time."

Alex stood his ground.

"I think he'll think differently this time. Tell him… Tell him I get it. And I've got an offer he can't refuse. I'll give him what he wants. And more."

The guard leered at him, leaning in, before looking him over and laughing harshly.

"Anton will _ruin_ you." He reached for his gun – a real one this time, not a harmless taser – and pointed it at Alex instead. "You can tell 'im yourself. I'm no messenger." He prodded it into the small of Alex's back as he turned and shoved him through the door.

_Мой, huh?_ Sometimes Alex really hated being in charge.

* * *

><p><em><strong>It's been a while, huh. This is a bit of a short chapter, just because I haven't written in about a week, and I need to get back in the spirit of things. I'll probably keep writing a lot more today though seeing as I have some free time, but I'm just not terribly motivated to at the moment as I have so much school work and stuff to do. But anyway.<strong>_

_**To everyone who reviews - thank you so much! You make me so happy whenever I get someone telling me even something as short as "this was good", not to mention that awesomesauce feeling when people write me epic-length reviews that are probably as long as this chapter! Again, thank you! I can't thank you enough, especially considering I'm feeling kinda depressed at the moment so that just makes me feel awesome.**_

_**To people who don't review - DICK MOVE. That is all. (Just kidding - if you don't want to then fair enough but I hope you're enjoying it anyway.)**_

_**Oh, and I wrote this in my underwear.**_


	12. We're All

**Chapter Eleven – "We're All"**

The guard was not gentle. He insisted to maintaining the gun's pressure against his back at all times – admittedly a wise move on his behalf, Alex realised, but one that would make any chance of escape nigh impossible. That aside, the man remained focused on him, pointedly leering and raising his eyebrows suggestively; it would seem that everyone in the base was aware of Anton's designs on him, a realisation that caused him to flush slightly, which he cursed as it only spurred on the guard's muffled guffaws as they walked.

They reached a doorway shortly – far_ too_ shortly in Alex's opinion – in front of which they stopped. His guard rapped upon it before entering, not waiting for confirmation. They entered – or rather the guard entered and Alex stumbled into – the room and Alex's guard was quickly shooed out. Anton stared at him, a sadistic smile playing across his lips, obviously aware that Alex had gotten his 'message'. He didn't bother to rise from his chair, instead remaining there as some sort of assertion of his power. Alex remained at his position near the door, unsure as to what to do, considering the fragile state of affairs. He didn't want to anger this man any more than he already had at the moment.

Anton remained silent, and in the absence of speech Alex took this moment to assess and analyse the room he was in. The whole area he'd been kept in so far appeared to be rather low budget; technology was usually a good way to judge the amount of money in a company or group, and in all the rooms he'd been in so far the technology had been outdated to say the best. He guessed that his captors were either a small group or underfunded – he was increasingly suspicious that they were both. The room he was in now was not small by any stretch of the word, but neither was it impressive. A large conference table sat to the side of the room surrounded by chairs, but unlike the overly sumptuous and modern setup at SCORPIA, the furniture here was, while not old, definitely cheap and lacked any semblance of class. The wallpaper in the room was tinted sepia at the joins, but while the room itself wasn't exactly falling into disrepair, it did smell decrepit and dank. Judging by the plethora of electronic boxes and the tangle of wiring sprawling from them, this room appeared to be the centre of operations for the facility, which was interesting to note. Mere seconds had passed, and Alex quickly took stock of all the available exits. There were next to none: two doors – the one he'd just entered through and another next to the conference table – and that was it. The lack of windows anywhere in the room suggested to him they were underground, which would make any escape attempt infinitely more difficult.

Anton, perhaps noticing his roving eyes, cleared his throat, and Alex's attention was on him immediately. He hadn't cared to notice it beforehand, but he could now see clearly the evidence of their previous encounter in the form of a few strips of surgical tape holding Anton's nose in place. A smirk threatened to surface, which he swiftly stamped down, instead waiting for Anton to speak. He did not disappoint.

"Alex," he ground out, voice malicious and deep. It sent a shiver down his spine; he could have sworn he'd heard that voice elsewhere. He pulled himself from his thoughts and steeled himself to the task at hand.

"Anton." He moved forward slowly, head down, palms open, unthreatening. When he was within a metre of the man, he looked up and spoke again. "I'm here to… negotiate the release of my comrades."

Anton looked him up and down, hands clasped in front of him like some James Bond villain.

"…Go on."

Alex's posture stiffened as his eyes shot up to meet the other man's in disbelief.

"Just like tha- Well, I can't complain. You can beat them up and stage their escape. You could relocate as soon as they've gone."

Anton didn't even shift from his position in his seat.

"This doesn't sound an awful lot like negotiating, Alex," he warned, voice low and dangerous. "It sounds more like a list of demands. You need to give me something if you want anything to happen – you of all people should know all about that."

He might have been accustomed to doing what was necessary to get results, but he'd never get used to it; he didn't imagine – didn't want to imagine – a time when he'd not feel the burn of shame from manipulating people with his '_silver tongue'_. He couldn't look the other man in the eye, instead turning his head to the side, shamefaced, staring at his bare feet, before flicking his eyes up in a well-practiced, seductive, _submissive_ move.

"Well," he forced out, attempting to swallow the lump in his throat to no avail. "What exactly did you…" He broke eye contact again, before finishing, voice breaking as he did so. "…Want?"

A wide grin spread across the other man's face, and Alex knew he'd said the right thing.

"I want you."

The phrase sent shudders of repulsion lancing through his body, but he swallowed down his guilt, trepidation, regrets, quickly enough in the name of Queen and country.

"In which case," he said, against every fibre of his being willing him not to, "You shall get what you want. But, ah, what was it you said? 'You need to give me something if you want that to happen?'"

Anton's grin grew ever wider.

"What makes you think I can't have it all?"

Alex stared at him, wide-eyed.

"You- but-"

"Now now, you didn't really expect me to _release_ those men? I might spare them, yes, but you ask too much of me, Alex, and…" He grabbed Alex's wrist again, gazing cruelly into those eyes, revelling in the barely-concealed fear lurking there. "…Such impudence I cannot ignore." He grinned at him again and stood, pushing Alex down to his knees as he did so. "You know the drill."

Alex turned away from him; it might have been a necessary part of his job, but these more unsavoury aspects always offended his dignity. He swallowed again, before looking up at him defiantly.

"What's in it for me?"

Anton chuckled down at him, more sinister than Alex could have ever imagined.

"Do this and I won't kill you."

The ever-present gun that Anton seemed to have trained on Alex incessantly was now closer than ever, suddenly jammed up against his temple, the cold steel pushing him to face Anton in his entirety. Black dots appeared in his eyes from the pressure; he knew how much damage Anton could deal out so he yielded to its insistent pushing, resigning himself to his nauseating task.

His hands were untied this time, which made his job infinitely easier. Mindful of the gun, as always, he swiftly undid the other man's trousers, pulling them down in one fluid movement before beginning his work. The initially suppressed curses and moans and pants of pleasure became gradually less muffled and more vocal, more needy, with breathy blandishments floating down to him, telling him he was doing his job well. He continued soullessly, coaxing evermore-desperate vocalisations out of the man, watching avidly as the hand holding the gun dropped, excruciatingly slowly, from its position against its head down to rest on his shoulder as Anton had apparently lost all will to support himself in the slightest.

An evil idea sparked in the back of Alex's mind. Working quickly but calmly he shifted from being knelt on his knees to crouching on the floor and, with a quick glance up to make sure Anton's attention wasn't on him, moved his hands from the man's hips, ready to disarm him. He didn't even notice. A brief feeling of pre-emptive remorse flashed through his mind, but he quickly chased it away. He doubted he would regret this in the slightest. With his doubts erased, he sneered as best he could around Anton's girth and bit down. Hard.

Needless to say, the man doubled over in pain, screaming to high heaven. Alex had expected that. What he hadn't expected was for Anton to reflexively pull the trigger as he did it, sending a bullet along his back, leaving an immense trench of a wound in its wake. Alex barely managed to avoid howling as it rent its way down, biting near through his lip to withhold the sound. He could barely see through the involuntary tears welling up in his eyes, but he could see just enough to snatch the gun from Anton's admittedly weak grasp. Before he could even check it over, let alone wipe his eyes, a party of four guards entered the room, confused and minus pistols; Alex disposed of them in quick succession, firing four bullets and hitting four targets right in between the eyes. They slumped to the ground, motionless and slowly leaking blood out onto the faded brown carpet. They'd probably leave a stain.

Alex looked around the room quickly, senses straining. He couldn't _hear_ any backup; he guessed that any other guards would have assumed that _he'd_ been the one taken out. Anton was panting, immobile, on the floor and, he assumed, also incapacitated. However…

"You move in the slightest without my say-so, and I'll know." Alex spat at him, narrowing his eyes threateningly. "I'll _kill_ you."

There was silence.

"_Do you understand?"_

Anton, cowed, quickly whimpered his assent.

Alex grimaced before heading over to where the guards laid, conveniently stacked into something of a pile. He nudged them with his bare foot, face twisting in distaste as his toe came away covered in blood. He leant over and quickly shoved the corpses under the conference table; it wasn't the best hiding place by far, but it made the room a lot less conspicuous than it would have been with cadavers lying all over the place. He wiped his hands on his shirt absent-mindedly, trying to get as much blood off of the gun as he could in the process. He looked over at Anton; he was still curled up in the foetal position on the floor near the middle of the room, apparently taking his warning to heart. Alex strode over to him and gripped him by the shirt, the adrenaline of the 'fight' now masking the pain from his back and the cracked rib.

"Where are the keys to the cell?"

Anton chuckled, albeit very weakly, before choking out:

"Fuck you."

Alex smiled at him warmly.

"Looks like you've got some fight in you left."

Some might think that, shoeless as he was, Alex couldn't have done very much damage with such a simple kick. However, Alex was a first dan in Karate, and Karate is intended to be practiced, and carried out, barefoot. As such, it came as no surprise to him when he felt the distinct pressure – and then lack of it – which customarily accompanied the breaking of a few ribs. All he got in reply was a broken, gurgling cry and Alex tutted sympathetically at the man's suffering.

"Now," he asked patiently, unnervingly. "Where exactly did you say the keys were?"

This time, Anton was more willing to answer without profanity.

"There-" he choked out, gasping with pain, "There are no keys!"

Alex, assuming that the man was merely being obstructive, responded to that with another brutal kick, eliciting a short yelp of pain from the other man, which was cut off by a choking, hacking cough. Blood came out onto the carpet; Alex looked on, disinterested.

"Huh," he remarked. "Guess that went into your lung." He shot him another disarming smile. "Have fun with that."

He left the room he came, leaving Anton to his death. He couldn't bring himself care overly that it would be slow and painful. Casting Anton out of his mind, he retraced his footsteps as best he could before he stood in front of what he assumed was the door to the room in which he had been kept previously, and in which K-Unit still resided. There was no lock, just an outwards-facing latch. He tried the door; it opened without resistance.

"Huh. Guess he wasn't lying then."

The looks of shock on K-Unit's faces as they looked up to see him as their unexpected saviour were intensely gratifying.

"C-" Eagle stuttered, staring at him, wide-eyed. "Cub?"

Alex levelled him with a deadpan look.

"What of it?"

"You- uhh… What?"

Alex resisted the urge to face-palm, and instead heaved a gigantic sigh.

"I negotiated the terms of our release."

Fox's head snapped up, and his eyebrows knitted together in a look of confusion.

"But hostage release situations… You'd need MI6 authori-"

"Look, Fox," Alex cut in. "When I say "negotiated the terms" I mean "kicked the guy's ribcage in" and by "our release" I mean "us breaking out of this shit-hole". So yeah. Who's with me?"

Wolf opened his mouth to speak; Alex cut him off again.

"Trick question: you all are. Now follow me."

ARARARARAR

Alex wasn't entirely sure where the whole thing had gone wrong. K-Unit had accepted him as a temporary leader and followed his instructions to the letter. The facility had been surprisingly clear of security, which, Alex thought that, in hindsight, he perhaps should have taken as a foreboding sign. However, he knew that the real problem rested with the fact that he'd left Anton on the floor to his assumed death, without even restraining him, which was why he was now staring straight down the barrel of a gun.

Anton may only have been standing due to the support of an improvised crutch; he may not have known any martial arts, or how to fight, but he was angry and in pain and in possession of a firearm at point blank range, which made him as dangerous as any man Alex had ever faced.

Resignation hit Alex head-on. He knew that – had he been in top condition – he could have gotten himself out of this situation with a combination of speed, strength, skill and his near-suicidal tendency to do things without regard for the consequences. However, right now he was at significantly less than top form. His new wound burnt like hellfire, the cracked rib had only been aggravated and Alex wouldn't be surprised if it was now properly broken, and that's not to mention all the other various battle scars flaring up at the exertion. His adrenaline rush had died down to a level where it wasn't useful in the slightest and he knew there was nothing he could do.

That wasn't going to stop him from exacerbating the situation, though.

"You know," he started, smiling wanly at not only Anton but also K-Unit, who were surrounding the two of them, unable to interfere, unarmed as they were. "I'd take it all back, if I could. And that's not just because you're about to kill me." Alex was implementing his last available plan: to provoke the man into lowering his gun for the slightest moment – whether out of anger or fear he didn't care – so that K-Unit could safely jump in and disarm him, thereby saving the day, as well as Alex's life.

It wasn't working.

Anton sneered, blood bubbling at the corners of his mouth. His gun arm was trembling – probably from blood loss – but remained steady enough to still have a perfect headshot.

"You'd take it all back, would you, you little shit?" Anton's voice rose as he spoke, until it reached a plateau at a hysterical level. "_You'd take it all back?_ What about my brother's death? _Would you take __**that**__ back?_"

Anton's arm was trembling more wildly now, and he could see as K-Unit eyed up the situation avidly that they were reaching the same conclusion as him. _Just a bit further._

"Your brother?" Alex asked, apathetic. "I'm sorry, I can't say I remember who that was… I've just killed _so_ many people, you see."

Anton's face screwed up – he was incandescent with rage – yet this did not affect his aim adversely. Instead, it seemed to fill him with new fervour, straightening his arm as Anton straightened himself. Alex expected an incensed monologue of sorts; instead, all he saw were Anton's eyes narrowing at him, before he said one line.

"It is of no consequence – I am sure you will remember soon enough once you've come face-to-face with him in the afterlife."

A single shot rang out.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Don't kill me. If you kill me you'll never be relieved from the cliffhanger. That aside...<strong>_

_**To people who've reviewed: You're awesome and I love you all! Thanks for all your praise and encouragement! Please don't kill me.**_

_**To people who haven't reviewed: WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME? Is it something I did? AM I TOO FAT FOR YOU? YOU'VE LEFT ME FOR ANOTHER AUTHOR, HAVEN'T YOU? I have 91 people who like this enough to put it on their alerts list. NINETY ONE. I'm not gonna lie - if I could actually get all ninety-one of those people to drop me a line on here I think I would probably drop dead from joy. I don't want to be one of those authors who says "I won't update until I have twenty THOUSAND reviews" because I'd feel like a dick, but I'll just leave that hint there. Make my day; send me a review!**_

_**Love, Little Miss Lover~**_

_**P.S. Please don't kill me.**_


	13. Dying

**Chapter Twelve – "Dying"**

He didn't feel anything when it happened. As if in slow motion he heard the gunshot ring out, but he didn't feel anything. He hadn't felt anything immediately the last time he'd had a kill shot aimed at him either, though, he rationalised, not realising that the ability to think rationally was a tad strange in this situation. His eyesight was going hazy; this was it. This was the end. K-Unit weren't moving either, shocked into stillness. His breath came harder and, wheezing, he weakly lifted one of his hands to his neck. It came away dripping blood. He stared at it for a moment. _Why-_

He was unconscious before he even hit the floor.

ARARARARAR

It wasn't until he woke up that he realised he wasn't dead. It might have been better if he had been, though.

The first thing he noticed after rejoining the land of the living was the hearty hum of an engine thrumming under him. The second thing he noticed was that he was alive, but since pondering on that made his head hurt he pushed that small issue to the side for now. The third thing he noticed was that he was alone, and therefore at least a little safe, so he cracked open an eye as far as he dared.

He was, it appeared, travelling inside a reasonably cushy private jet. _Definitely not MI6, then,_ he thought with almost a groan before examining his surroundings. The compartment of the plane he was in was small compared to Air Force One, or Nikolei Drevin's aircraft, but it was still impressive with white leather sofas and what appeared to be a conference table with a projector screen set up beside it. He was laying on one of the sofas, stained brown in places with partially coagulated blood. He cringed – it might have been an enemy's plane but he still felt guilty for tarnishing the furniture, which was probably worth more than his life. Trying to force his overly kind instincts aside, he sat upright making as little noise as possible, and tested his bare feet against the floor. He was shirtless, he noted absently as he felt the cushy carpet between his toes.

It was when he stood up proper that he realised he was doped up beyond hope with painkillers. _That at least means they must be friendly to a certain extent…_ With this thought in mind – and not much else – he decided to go searching for his saviour. However, he wasn't stupid. He'd bring some form of protection.

He looked for some time for 'some form of protection'. His search for a knife or gun ending up futile, he ended up fashioning a shiv out of a plastic tray he'd found and broken as surreptitiously as he could over the arm of one of the sumptuous conference chairs. Luckily, the sound was muffled by the jet's engines and, after waiting a few minutes hidden out of sight, he was confident his saviour either hadn't heard it or had brushed it off as unimportant. He snuck as sneakily as he could up to the front of the jet, passing through the door easily as it hadn't been locked, into the area usually reserved for stewards and stewardesses. He didn't close the door, as that could alert the man piloting the ship, instead pushing aside the curtain keeping this area apart from the cockpit and slinking in behind the pilot, ready to stab him if necessary.

He opened his mouth to gain the man's attention, but was beaten to it when the other man spoke first.

"Alex, dearest Alex," the other man began, his voice as smooth as honey yet nowhere near as intimidating as he remembered. "Could you really kill me? You've grown into a man after my own heart."

A dry chuckle echoed throughout the cockpit, clear even over the sound of the engines, and Alex's heart palpitated wildly in his chest. His vision blurred in his panic, and all the times he'd met this man passed in front his eyes in a blur. His hand grabbed at the pilot's chair to keep himself upright, knees threatening to buckle underneath him, as his mind pieced together the past and present.

_Something is not right here,_ his gut was screaming at him, but he ignored it, screaming back: _Of _course_ there isn't – look who my fucking saviour is!_ However, externally he tried to remain calm and collected, and took only one deep breath before greeting the man correctly as manners dictated.

"Yassen," he nodded. The other man's eyes flickered towards him briefly, before he reached and pressed a button on the control panel. He turned to face Alex again, standing in the same fluid motion.

"Alex," he purred, and a shiver ran down Alex's spine. Him being shirtless, Yassen obviously saw, and what he thought was a predatory smile played across his lips. "It really has been _too_ long."

Alex, feeling threatened, started looking around wildly for a way to escape, _any_ way to escape, while fingering the blunt shiv in his hands anxiously. Yassen saw, and stopped his efforts before he could even think of getting his hopes up.

"Do you know how to fly a plane, Alex?"

Alex shrunk into himself, immediately. Even if he did stab Yassen, which he was sure he could do, he wasn't so sure he could pilot the plane single-handedly.

"…No."

Admitting defeat in front of the enemy hurt his pride, but he knew Yassen could hurt him more for talking back, disobeying his orders, for **anything**. Yassen sat down again and smiled at him benevolently.

"Would you like to learn?"

He saw Yassen gesture to the empty second seat, and his mind raced in circles, trying and failing to understand the situation. Circuits effectively fried, he found himself slipping back into the submissive, compliant, _obedient_ character he had become during captivity.

He nodded, numbly, uncomprehending, and flopped into the co-pilot's chair. Yassen smiled at him benevolently, and started to teach.

ARARARARAR

He didn't remember falling asleep, but when he did he wished he hadn't. He turned in his chair, cursing as he did so. He didn't open his eyes.

"Shhh," he heard someone – he didn't remember whom – murmur, and he soon felt the prick of a needle entering his arm. He flinched away reflexively but hissed as he felt the pain in his side, resigning himself to it.

As the sedative pulled him under the last thing he felt was a hand on his head, carding through his hair almost affectionately.

ARARARARAR

When he next woke up it was dark out. Not that that meant anything – they could have been anywhere in the world, and he had no idea as to what time zone they were flying in. However, without the sedative keeping him unconscious, there was no way he could willingly fall asleep in the presence of an assassin.

He'd been transferred back into the main cabin while he was sleeping, and was once again lying on the leather couch that he had initially woken up on. He had been kindly positioned on his left side so as to avoid aggravating his back or ribs, which, he realised with a small amount of shock, had been bandaged up while he was out. He shouldn't have been surprised, he thought. He was a prisoner, an asset to the company, now and SCORPIA wouldn't jeopardise that by being inattentive to his health. MI6 would want him back in one piece, and would pay through the nose to get him.

He hoped.

He manoeuvred himself into a sitting position and only then saw Yassen sitting on a couch a few metres opposite him, legs crossed, tapping away at his laptop. Alex coughed awkwardly, and Yassen peered over his reading glasses at him.

"You're awake," he remarked casually. "How do you feel?"

"I'm fine," Alex replied – a vague, automatic answer borne of necessity.

"I'm glad."

Alex stared at his feet for a while, trying to pull the thin blanket around his shoulders to cover his scarred chest. Yassen watched him amusedly for a moment before looking away, somewhat abashed.

"I didn't think to bring you any clothes," he stated, before – somewhat worryingly, in Alex's opinion – starting to undress. Alex could feel the almost PTSD-style flashbacks about to hit him, but remained impassive outwardly, only calming down slightly when Yassen threw his surprisingly cosy jumper at him, which he dove into without hesitation, eager to drown himself in its thick fabric and hide himself from scrutinisation. It was, he realised, not exactly like his scars would be news to SCORPIA – they had, after all, been the people who had inflicted a lot of them on him – but his self-confidence was somewhat lacking. He had to push that to the side now, though, as he did with so many of his feelings and insecurities. He was a captive, and he'd been in enough of these situations to know the drill.

"Am I," he started before cutting himself off, his mouth dry. "Can you tell me where my unit is?" He had no idea why he wasn't cacking himself from fear right now. He figured it must've been the drugs making him such an utterly fearless bastard – morphine had always blurred his senses of self-preservation, which was probably one of the reasons why MI6 liked to feed it into him as often as they could.

Yassen looked up again.

"Why, they're where we left them."

"Ah." Alex looked down at his feet again. He was doing that a lot recently. "Are they, uhm… alive?" Dear god, why wasn't he scared? He should have been a nervous wreck by now, not that he was complaining, but he wasn't nearly as intimidated as he knew he should have been, and it was freaking him the fuck out.

Yassen looked at him, unreadable.

"Well, I gave them a fighting chance. I imagine they'll be fine."

"_Imagine_ they'll be fine?" Alex cried, indignant, for a moment forgetting his situation. "What's that supposed to-" He took a deep breath and sighed again before composing himself. "Sorry. It's not my place to say."

Yassen moved the laptop off of his lap before resting his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands under his chin in a surprisingly human pose.

"Alex," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "SCORPIA has nothing against those men. We made sure not to kill them; I was assigned to retrieve you with as little collateral damage as possible." He paused, as if weighing up whether to disclose the next piece of information to Alex. "That said," he began slowly, "I couldn't leave them alive if they'd seen me, hence the incapacitating grenade."

Alex butted in here, indignant.

"You used knockout gas?"

Yassen nodded in affirmation.

"You dick! I thought I'd been shot!"

Yassen raised an eyebrow at him, before admitting:

"Actually, you had."

"…You what?"

Yassen leaned forward in his seat even further, if possible.

"In order to shoot… that man, I had to… well, I had to shoot through the side of your neck."

There was a long pause in which neither of them said anything. Alex coughed eventually before speaking.

"I'm sorry, I could've sworn you said you just shot me in the neck."

Yassen nodded, and Alex's hand immediately darted up to his neck, where he could feel butterfly stitches pasted onto his skin in a straight line.

"Alex," he remarked easily, brushing past Alex's indignance for the nth time that night. "Have I ever told you of how I got this scar?" He pointed to his neck, and Alex – partly out of not only politeness but also fear and curiosity – shook his head vigorously. Yassen chuckled softly at his eagerness, and cleared his throat.

"Your father and I were on a mission in the Amazon when it happened…"

Over the next hour or so, Alex learned more about his father then he had during the entire rest of his life.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Sup gaiz. I hope you like this. <strong><em>It took a new (and hopefully interesting) turn, right? <em>**Before you go all "OH JESUS THAT'S SO OUT OF CHARACTER WTF DUDE GO DIE IN A LAKE" remember that Alex is on morphine, like I said, so he's kinda... Not firing on all cylinders. But yeah. Like? No like?_**

**_Hmmmm... Do you reckon I could even dare trying to aim for 200 reviews this time? DO I DARE? I'm offering kiribans for all of my milestone reviews as well, so 100, 200 reviews etc all get a mini-side-story dedicated to them at the end of the story! Yes, I know I haven't uploaded the first one yet but it's in the queue of things to do, and I'm going to put them all at the end and try to integrate them in once the main story is finished, so yeah... For the record, the 100 reviews kiriban mini-side-story is dedicated to life-is-lonely._**

**_OH YEAH and I'm changing the names of some of the chapters... I pulled the lyrics for them from the wrong place in the song. *facepalm*_**

**_Normal author-y business aside, sharing some lolsome stuff from my day._**

**_In English Lit today, we had the most inane lesson ever. Some people in my class don't understand the difference between metaphors, similes and analogies... So our teacher was giving us examples and making us talk about them. He said to me, "Little Miss, why is love like a rose?" and I told him, in my most serious deadpan voice I could muster up, "Because it has thorns, and if it hurts you things get bloody". Everyone in my class (all eight other people) just looked at me like I was crazay. Which I probably am a little._**

**_...JESUS CHRIST as I am writing this YET MORE people have added me to their story alert list. Guys, I'm flattered, but why can't you spare me a few words and actually tell me if you like it? Here I am slaving over my keyboard for hours every day, skipping out on coursework for you guys... If you like it that much... Grumble grumble sigh guilt trip._**


	14. Do You Think

**Chapter Thirteen – "Do You Think"**

Unsurprisingly, it was Fox who awoke first albeit with a rather unprofessional jolt followed by a groan as he clutched at his head; his vision was fuzzy, almost watery, and his brain felt heavy.

"What the-"

That was when he smelt it.

"Fuck." His head snapped to the side when he heard a moan coming from his left, and he responded in kind as he felt a wave of wooziness hit him. He could see Snake waking up through the mists of confusion surrounding them both.

"Urgh," the other man ground out. "What happen-" He stopped mid-sentence, his hand halfway to his head as he breathed in quickly. "Do you smell that?"

Fox nodded, somewhat alarmed. Snake struggled to his feet, battling his body, which wanted nothing, more than to lay down and sleep right now, all the while uttering curses under his breath.

"Fox," he stated, voice groggy yet scarily urgent. "Help me wake up the others."

ARARARARAR

Alex didn't recall when he'd fallen asleep again, two thousand miles away in a plane en route to who knows where, but when he awoke he found that he was, sadly, no longer hopped up on morphine. He wouldn't admit it aloud – if MI6 heard a whiff of this, they'd call it addiction, _which it wasn't_ – but he was rather fond of the detached, floaty feeling it gave him. He'd fallen asleep on his back this time, and he could feel the somewhat open wound on his back sticking to Yassen's sweater. He was not looking forward to explaining that to the man.

He rolled over on the sofa, the leather sticking to his legs annoyingly as he manoeuvred himself into a comfortable position, a feat that was proving nigh impossible with all of his various injuries. He heard a chuckle in the distance and automatically snapped to alert, jolting his cracked rib in the process. He hissed and clutched at his ribcage; the chuckle returned and come closer as did the man it belonged to. The couch dipped slightly as Yassen perched next to him and placed a hand gently on his upper back to steady him. It came away sticky and reddish-brown. He looked at it disconcertedly, and Alex, still clutching his ribs gingerly, looked up at him with no small amount of panic.

Yassen forced a gentle smile onto his face – which, Alex thought, looked incredibly out of place there – before trying to calm Alex down.

"It's a dark colour anyway. That'll wash out."

Alex had never been more scared… or confused. What his mind was telling him about this man – what he _remembered_ – was entirely different from what he was experiencing right now. Yassen had been nothing but kind to him during this trip and he didn't know what to think about it, other than the fact that it must've been an act, and he had no idea to what end the part was being played. Surely the fact that he'd been intimidated and hurt during his stay with SCORPIA would be a greater incentive for MI6 to work quickly and cough up the cash to set him free from their clutches… and yet here he was getting the VIP treatment. He shrunk even more under Yassen's gaze and the man, sensing this, looked away with the smallest hint of a frown on his face.

"You'd better get some more sleep," he told him, getting up off the couch again. "We've another four and a half hours or so until we arrive."

Alex somehow managed to work past his thick tongue and throat dry with terror to squeeze out a few words.

"Arrive where?"

Yassen turned to regard him with a queer look before turning and continuing on to the cockpit.

"You know where."

ARARARARAR

"Stay close to the ground," Fox had warned his teammates as they'd been awoken and, while at the time it had seemed irrelevant, K-Unit were now seeing the sense in his words as they ran, crouched, through the halls of this seemingly endless labyrinth. The gas leak had pervaded the entire facility, making it impossible to remain conscious above a certain height, which was lowering slowly but surely all the time. They'd been going through this maze for at least an hour before Snake vocalised what they were all thinking.

"Where the fuck is the exit to this place?"

Eagle stopped short in the middle of the corridor.

"Guys," he began slowly. "This is a staircase."

Wolf looked at him like he was mentally impaired.

"Yes…?"

"We're underground."

"Good of you to notice."

Eagle stared at him, eyebrows raised and hands splayed.

"It's… a _staircase_."

Snake was the first to cotton on.

"Ah." He coughed into his hand awkwardly, the lack of oxygen making him woozy. "But… we can't get up there with this gas leak."

Eagle tutted and looked to the side, lost in thought.

"There's no way we can," Fox muttered fatalistically. "It'd be suicide."

Wolf stood up suddenly, before regretting it and dropping to the floor again.

"God, guys," he groaned, "This is weak." He leaned in to them, conspiratorially. "Now, it could get us all killed, but… I have an idea."

"What?"

"Duck."

That said, he pulled out Anton's discarded gun from earlier and fired a round into the air.

ARARARARAR

Bianca Bonifacia was many things: beautiful, wealthy and cunning – all the things necessary to become a successful member of the underworld – but she was not by any means patient. However, today she was having patience forced upon her courtesy of one Alex Rider. Why, you might ask, was Bianca Bonifacia talking to Alex Rider, of all people?

Bianca Bonifacia was the leader of SCORPIA.

Let's backtrack a tad, shall we?

Bianca had been waiting not so patiently for the arrival of Alex Rider for about 9 hours in the short term, a week since she had authorised his capture in the medium term and slightly more than two months in the long term since he first left them. She was, by this point, more than slightly antsy about the whole affair, and couldn't wait to get a chance to question the boy. Their means of getting him back to base had been… unorthodox, to be sure, but Bianca had never had any problems with flouting convention, which brought her to this highly unusual, not to mention unproductive, situation. She was seated opposite Alex Rider, who was likewise sat across from her, a modern metal and glass desk separating them. She valiantly ignored the fact that he was dressed in no more than a pair of boxers and an oversized jumper, just as she ignored that he was slowly but surely bleeding out all over the white fabric of the chair he was sitting on. Her interior designers would never learn. Yassen Gregorovitch was elsewhere in the compound, but while he was out of sight he was definitely not out of mind. Alex's thoughts rested almost entirely on this mysterious figure, trying to meld the two images of him in his head. As such, he nearly missed Bianca's first question to him.

"-rust your journey was pleasurable?" he caught, and thanked whatever deities watching that he hadn't missed anything important. Quite used to the formalities that most modern-day villains still liked to uphold, he answered her courteously.

"Yes, thanks. Yassen was nothing but civil during the passage."

Bianca nodded at him with a vacantly seductive smile aimed at him purely from routine; she had expected nothing else of him.

"Excellent." She crossed her legs, showing off more of her smooth, tanned legs than Alex considered as being strictly professional. "On behalf of all of SCORPIA, I'd just like to tell you that we're all so glad to have to back, Alex."

Alex smiled at her again, albeit more tightly. _Of course you are_, Alex thought. _Why wouldn't you be when you could get a small fortune out of the British Government for my return?_ Regardless, he kept up his external image as Bianca uncrossed her legs.

"Now, Alex," Bianca began, uncharacteristically patient, after it became apparent that Alex wasn't going to be exactly forthcoming with information, "I'm afraid I've other things to do right now – you were rather later than I expected you after all – so we'll have to put off our talk, but rest assured: _we will talk_." She smiled at him again, sultry and pleasing and utterly fake, and Alex felt a coil of dread pang in his stomach. She stood up, said "Yassen will show you to your room," and that was that.

ARARARARAR

Roughly four thousand miles away in the beautiful Welsh countryside, the world was tranquil and serene as usual; the fields were lush with grass dotted with clover and cowslips, the mighty oak trees shaded the ground from the surprisingly abundant sun and a few clueless sheep lounged on the ground-

"_**What the fuck were you thinking?**_"

-sped skittishly away from the four disgruntled and somewhat singed SAS soldiers pouring out of what appeared to be a shed offset to the side of said field. The shortest, yet most heavyset, of the men squared his shoulders and inhaled deeply as if preparing to shout back. However, he exhaled with a heavy sigh and paused before replying.

"Not much, actually."

Fox just gaped, trying, and failing, to form words to voice his disbelief. Wolf took this chance to tack on another sentence to his already damning statement.

"It worked, didn't it?" He looked around at his companions before declaring hotly, "Besides, I'd like to have seen any of you come up with anything else! I wasn't about to die from asphyxiation from a stupid _gas leak_. I wanted to go out with a bang."

Struck by the absurdity by this statement, the rest of his team was rendered speechless for at least 10 seconds.

"Was that-" Snake choked out, disbelieving. "Was that a _pun_?"

Wolf stared at him, wide-eyed, before grinning back at him jovially.

"Man, I ought to punch you for that."

Eagle proceeded to do just that.

None of the men mentioned their current state of undress, or the threatening nature of the looming clouds, or Cub's absence, or the fact that it was getting late and when the sun set it would get bitingly, achingly cold; instead they decided on a direction to head off in and started walking. They needed to find society, and quickly. Cub's safety could rely on it.

ARARARARAR

It had been with no small amount of dread that he'd followed Yassen obediently but cautiously to what he thought was to assuredly be his inevitable doom. It was therefore with no small amount of confusion that he was led into a perfectly acceptable medium-sized room decorated entirely in various shades of cream, off-white and eggshell (all of which Jack had at one point in his life guaranteed him were entirely different) and outfitted with furniture definitely not befitting the life of a captive. He noticed Yassen was speaking to him, and pulled himself back into the real world, berating himself for zoning out when in the presence of a very dangerous, very skilled assassin.

"You've been moved since your last stay here," he heard Yassen say, and just clamped down on the urge to roll his eyes. _ That much is obvious,_ he thought, _considering the last time I was here I was either in a fucking cell or __**your bedroom**_. He maintained his calm, zen exterior, though, and listened indifferently. "Bianca thought to get clothes ordered in for you in your size, which you could no doubt use, but not before a shower. The bathroom's through here," he gestured at a door set into the far wall, "and personal effects, toiletries and such can be found in the cabinet." He stopped and turned to see Alex staring at him blankly. "Yes?"

Alex swallowed dryly, and nodded at the other door in the room next to the bed.

"Where does that door go?"

Yassen stared back at him, and they maintained awkward eye contact for a few seconds before Yassen spoke.

"My room."

With that he left, calling over his shoulder that he'd have someone bring him food and water.

It wasn't until he'd bathed, eaten and changed – it wasn't until he'd lain down on his wonderfully soft, almost familiar, bed – that he stared up at the ceiling and wondered in total bewilderment as he resignedly drifted into a restless sleep: _What the fuck is going on here?_

* * *

><p><strong><em>Confused yet? You should be.<em>**

**_I find myself getting into my pajamas earlier and earlier these days. I just bought a new PJ top from bravissimo with a proper inbuilt bra for sleepy-times, and I kid you not, I could do gymnastics in this thing. Which I kinda have been. I've been bouncing around in it to test it out (which my neighbors loved, I'm sure). SO much support. Moreso than my usual bras, so I find myself getting home from college at 5 and being like "Is it too early to wear my PJs? PFFTno. Never too early."_**

**_MY CHOICE OF UNDERWEAR ASIDE, did you like it? Are you totally mindfucked yet? If you want any kind of clarification you can always ask me I guess, or you could just sit there and stubbornly not review. Your choice..._**

**_Pink Floyd is awesome, by the way._**


	15. You Deserve Your Freedom

**Chapter Fourteen – "You Deserve Your Freedom"**

_He was back on the bed again. He always retreated to this scene when he fell asleep. He recognised it was a dream, as he always did, but there was nothing he could do to escape. Eventually that knowledge became useless, serving no purpose other than to mock him and his helplessness._

_His face was turned to the side and he looked into the distance. He could sense someone at the foot of his bed but withheld eye contact, wanting to delay the inevitable for as long as possible._

"_Look at me, Alex."_

_The blue eyes bore into his soul through the darkness, and he shivered. This was the Yassen he knew, the Yassen he had experience with. He could deal with this better than his being understanding any day. Yassen was playing with the cuffs binding his feet, as he tended to do, and Alex jerked his legs away half-heartedly, an act of defiance that only served to spread his legs wider than they already were. He ignored this, however, and looked Yassen in the eye, chin jutting out defiantly even in his submissive position. He couldn't _see_ it, but he sensed Yassen raising an eyebrow at him._

"_Feisty today, aren't we."_

_He noticed, with an intense feeling of dread, Yassen reaching into his pocket, and when the hand withdrew in it was clasped a butterfly knife, the knife which he had grown up with. He flicked it open quickly, and bared it in a backhanded grip above Alex's torso. Alex stared up at him with false bravado, and noticed absent-mindedly that Yassen had cut himself opening it. _Strange…_ He stared at Yassen, challenging, hoping that maybe if he got sliced up badly enough Yassen wouldn't dare endangering him by putting him through some more… strenuous activities. However, looking up, he noticed in the distance a second pair of eyes watching him and he stared in shock as their owner spat out one word before leaving the room._

"_Amateur."_

ARARARARAR

He'd slept fitfully that night, waking up suddenly expecting Yassen to walk through the door and take advantage of him at any point, fearing the worst. Anticlimactically, the worst thing that happened to him that night was his nightmares, which were getting steadily stranger and stranger. At some level he supposed he could explain them away as being his brain trying to cope with the changes in character he'd experienced, but whatever the reason he decided right then and there that if he got free – _when_ he got free – the first thing he'd do would be to visit a shrink.

He eventually became weary of falling asleep only to wake up half an hour later at around six in the morning. It wasn't that he was no longer tired – far from it – but he was getting incredibly annoyed by the fractured periods of rest he _was _getting that it seemed more calming simply to be awake.

Plus, being awake allowed him time to puzzle over what the fuck was happening at this place.

His questions were soon answered as he reached the wardrobe.

_What the…_ He rooted through the clothes hanging up neatly – and _man_, were there a lot of them hanging – his despair building with every piece of clothing he thrust to the side. All the clothes he'd encountered so far were impeccably tailored dress shirts in dark greys and purples, some equally dark blazers… _ Was that a tux?_ He pulled the offending item out, confirmed it was so, and set it back on the rail, pushing down the hysterical giggle that was threatening to burst out.

_There has to be __**something**__ I can wear here…_ Alex hoped, before almost hitting himself from exasperation. _Right, this is the wardrobe… Only fancy stuff goes in here, you dolt._ He moved on to the chest of drawers, expecting to find a tracksuit or something and in much higher hopes.

Those hopes were very quickly dashed. All he could see were clothes that were probably worth more than his house: there were at least three pairs of Levi's in this one drawer, surrounded by form-fitting vests and T-shirts from who-knows-where, and he could've sworn he'd seen a _cardigan_ of all things wedged into one of the drawers. The meaning of all this didn't really hit home until he found there was one drawer dedicated entirely to Calvin Kleins.

_Shit._ _I'm a __**pet**__._

With that in mind, he padded to the bathroom in a world of his own.

ARARARARAR

The bathroom had been opulent beyond all measure, but he paid it no heed. His mind was instead circulating one thought around his head – the conclusion he'd come to earlier. He was going to end up being SCORPIA's pet MI6 agent to parade around in all his finery, doing all their dirty work while they taunted him about 'how the mighty have fallen'. He wasn't looking forward to that one bit.

After his uneventful night he didn't expect anyone to be in the room after his shower, which was why he waltzed into it butt-naked. Pride, on the other hand, was what made him remain that way and not run screaming for cover when he spied Yassen perched on his bed. Pride would be the end of him one day, but not today. He went about his business, seemingly undisturbed. Yassen, likewise, did not appear flustered, instead taking out his butterfly knife and twirling it expertly to amuse himself. Trying – and failing – to ignore the assassin in the room, Alex turned his attention to his wardrobe once again, pulling on a pair of pants as quickly as he could while still keeping up his composure. He rifled through the clothes he'd been given, eventually setting for a pair of the looser-cut jeans and the most unassuming shirt he could find before turning to face the other man, who was thoroughly engrossed in the knife in his hands.

"They don't really make these clothes for combat, huh," he quipped, trying to get the other man's attention. Yassen finished the knife's complicated twirl, sheathing it in his pocket somewhat menacingly, before replying to him.

"Indeed. However, you won't be needing to use your combat skills here."

The fact that he wouldn't get a chance to remained unsaid.

ARARARARAR

It was just another late night at the office for Alan Blunt (although whether it could be called a 'late night' if he consistently worked until 10pm was up for debate) when a rather frazzled Tulip Jones knocked on the door to his office. He beckoned her in with a tight smile and a yawn, expecting a thoughtful cup of coffee or a plate of biscuits. What he did _not_ expect was for Mrs Jones to flop down into one of the chairs opposite him and drop her head into her hands, utterly losing composure.

He coughed into his hand awkwardly. She did not respond. He cleared his throat.

"Ah, Tulip?"

She looked up, and sighed, reaching for a peppermint before sighing explosively again, hands altering course and reaching for her other pocket, taking out a silver box.

"Tulip!" Blunt gasped, agog. "I thought you kicked the habit."

She looked at him and rolled her eyes, reaching for the novelty lighter in the shape of a gun Alan kept on his desk at all times – a rare example of his sense of humour.

"Fuck it." She lit up her cigarette and Alan steadfastly set aside mentioning any health and safety rules. "I told you so."

Blunt blinked at her.

"Sorry?"

"I _told_ you so." She inhaled deeply, sliding across a manila folder as she did so. It had stamped across it in red ink, in a highly clichéd manner, 'LEVEL 10 CLEARANCE'.

Alan raised an eyebrow and flicked open the file. As his eyes moved down the page they got uncharacteristically wider, until a few pages later you could practically see the trepidation in the air.

"Fuck."

ARARARARAR

It had been roughly eight in the evening when a beat-up Land Rover passed by the four SAS soldiers, who had been steadfastly following the road, hopefully towards salvation and society. The driver of said truck had been in half a mind to turn around and speed up upon sight of four muscular men wearing only boxers and flimsy T-shirts, but curiosity overran his more sensible instincts, and he instead slowed to a halt by K-Unit, rolling down his window to better communicate with them.

"Bit nippy out for a midnight stroll, eh lads?"

The shortest of all the men had looked as if he was about to bite out a comment before one of the taller (and more diplomatic) men stepped in front of him, bending down to peer through the window of the car.

"Sir," he began, "Me and my _friends_ are members of the SAS." He fished around under his shirt for his dog tags, which he had thankfully been allowed to keep in captivity, and showed them to the driver of the vehicle for inspection. "We require assistance. I am allowed by law to requisition your vehicle, however I would much rather you helped us of your own free will."

The driver, satisfied with their authenticity, dropped the dog tags and leaned over to open the door, inviting them in.

"SAS lads, eh?" He remarked as they all clambered into the back seats. "'S no problem – I can get you back to Brecon area in no time."

One of the more wiry men looked at him disconcertedly.

"Whereabouts are we now, then?"

He chuckled good-naturedly.

"You're only about ten miles away, as the crow flies. I'll 'ave you there in half an hour, no more."

Fox buried his head in his hands.

_How embarrassing._

ARARARARAR

_How embarrassing, _Alex thought as he trudged through the halls hot on Yassen's heels towards his inevitable doom. Yassen had not allowed him to exit the room "dressed up like some commoner" for his meeting with Bianca, dressing him up with the purple shirt he'd seen earlier and one of the tailored blazers. Apparently he looked "refined"; he just felt like a pretentious twat. He failed to see the point in dressing him up in fancy clothes if he was just going to bloody them up being tortured. _Oh well_, it wasn't like it was _his_ money they were spending on these ridiculous clothes.

They stepped into an elevator and three floors later they stepped out straight into Bianca's office in the penthouse. Even in the face of death, or at least humiliation, Alex had to admit that SCORPIA had a sense of style. The penthouse was all glass and pale wood and cream silk exuding opulence, which was only magnified by Bianca herself who was lounged across a couch, all tanned legs and floaty muslin dress. Nobody would have guessed that she was one of the most powerful and deadly women in the world. She lifted her head to acknowledge them, nodding and smiling widely. Her brown hair cascaded over her shoulders as she moved to sit in a less vulnerable position and Yassen hung back, pushing Alex further forward into the room.

"Alex," Bianca greeted him with a beckoning wave of her hand. "It's so good to see you again! And so punctual." She nodded to Yassen in the distance, who slipped silently into the elevator and headed off to do… whatever it was that assassins did in their spare time. Alex didn't know.

"Bianca," he replied, words dripping with barely concealed insincerity. "The pleasure is all mine."

Bianca frowned at his tone of voice and crossed her legs agitatedly.

"Well," he sighed, trying to keep his temper. He really wished these people would just _spit it out_. He didn't like being kept in the dark. "What did you want?"

Bianca shifted languidly, hands surreptitiously wringing the hem of her dress.

"We've only got a few days before we'll have to send you back, Alex." She was eyeing him warily, like he was a loose cannon or a wildcat ready to strike. "I'll be needing all the information you can spare us."

"I don't really feel all that much like talking right now." Typical Rider humour. Bianca and him stared at each other intently, before she breathed out heavily.

"I do apologise for calling you up here at this early hour. I forgot – you must be tired."

Alex stared at her for a moment incredulously.

"Well," he bit out, "Excuse me if I haven't been sleeping so well lately. It's kind of hard to relax when I'm eagerly awaiting the assassin next door sneaking into my room and touching me inappropriately in the night."

"_Alex!"_ Bianca gasped, eyes wide. "That is a _serious_ accusation to make. Apart from that, we have protocol to prevent that sort of relationship developing between partners-"

"_Partners?_ When the _fuck_ did Yassen become my _partner_?"

At this Bianca seemed to transform; the somewhat wary yet elegant woman from before squared her shoulders and her eyes became stormy.

"What, exactly," she ground out, a scowl set on her face, "Is your problem with Yassen Gregorovitch?" Alex opened his mouth to reply, but she jumped up, cutting him off, voice rising with every passing second. "I know what this is! Those _lying_ bastards at MI6 turned you against us, didn't they?"

"I- wait, what?" Alex stared at her like she was crazy, which she was, to him. "There wasn't exactly much to turn against, not after the last time I was here!"

Bianca stopped her manic pacing to look him in the eye very intently for all of ten seconds.

She sat down with a rather unrefined plonk.

"Alex," she began with no small amount of trepidation. "I thought you'd been acting differently since the last time you were here, but…"

She looked up again, locking eyes with him imploringly, before she uttered the last sentence Alex thought he'd ever want to hear.

"Don't you remember… your time as a SCORPIA operative?"

* * *

><p><strong><em>Look, world, Coral isn't a colour and the sooner you accept that the sooner you and me can make up and we can both be happy again.<em>**

**_Oh, right, the chapter. Uhh... Not too sure where I stand on this one. I like it, but on the other hand I feel like it moves too fast in some areas and not enough in others. What do you think? Do you like it? Not like it? No preference?_**

**_The last chapter was the 3rd best received one of the story, and the most well received since the rating change, so thank you to everyone who reviewed! I almost had a conniption when I saw how much people liked it, so thank you all. You make me so happy. I'm getting all emotional thinking about it._**

**_I have a sudden feeling you're all gonna hate this chapter._**

**_That last line is so clichéd I could hit myself._**

**_Too late to go back on it now, I guess. Ugh._**

**_Update: Something funny. My friend was coming to my rescue on facebook over some argument and told me (in front of everyone in the conversation) "I'm here beb, been pumping my guns all day, MY AK47s THAT IS." Made me laugh uncontrollably._**


	16. How Could You

Chapter Fifteen – "How Could You"

"…The _hell_ are you smoking, woman?" were the first words Alex thought of in response to Bianca's revelation, and it appeared that his brain-mouth censor wasn't working so well as it _somehow_ managed to slip past his lips into the real world.

Bianca lifted a hand as if to strike him, before visibly trying to control herself; he could see her going through the same breathing exercises he had been taught by SCORPIA at Malagosto, and it appeared to work as she instead carded her hand through her hair inelegantly, heaving a sigh as she did. She appeared smaller than before, sat on the sofa, pulling her hair with her hands as she regarded Alex with something akin to pity in her eyes as she fidgeted with her hair.

"It appears," she said finally, her voice monotone and lacklustre, "That things are more complicated than they seem." She sighed once more, tugging on a bracelet at her wrist. "This isn't the first time this has happened, this… _memory loss_." Her voice sounded strained as her eyes lost focus for a moment. "We've lost so many men…"

Alex just stared at her in disbelief.

"You… expect me to believe this crap?"

Bianca barked out a startled laugh before shaking her head with a wistful smile.

"I forgot your wonderfully candid sense of humour. And that's why you were one of MI6's – one of our – top agents: you don't take things for granted. I'd be surprised – disappointed, even – if you'd accepted that without proof." She nodded at him, before leaning over to where a laptop was lying on the glass coffee table, tapping at its keyboard for a moment before turning it to face Alex. "There're copies of the documents to support this all on here, see?" All Alex got to see was a mass of text against an off-white background before the laptop was pulled away again and Bianca frantically tapped something else into the keyboard. "I've sent it off to print."

Alex raised an eyebrow sardonically.

"Forgive me if I'm not falling over myself to believe you, but you could have easily forged that. You're not exactly bound by morals over here, are you?"

Bianca glared at him.

"At least we look after our own." She bit out, acidic. "Regarding those documents… Well, I trust you'll come to the right conclusion."

With that, Alex was ushered out of Bianca's room no less confused than he'd entered.

ARARARARAR

If the documents resting in Alan Blunt's hands were to be believed, SCORPIA had gotten their hands on Alex Rider, and it had been his department's inattention that had allowed it to happen. He looked up from the file and its contents directly into the face of Mrs Jones who looked about as worried as he _felt_. She had fidgeting in her seat ever so slightly and worrying her bottom lip between her teeth intermittently as he had read the file and it's damning contents. He finally broke the strained silence with a question.

"The SAS Unit involved?"

"En route to be de-briefed."

"Has MI5 dispatched a team yet?"

"Not that we're aware of."

A heavy pause settled upon them before Mrs Jones posed a question.

"Should we assume the worst – assume it's SCORPIA?"

Blunt looked at her, eyes guarded.

"I suppose we'd better, hadn't we."

Another silence.

"Alan, if they _tell_ him–"

"They _will_ tell him."

"…If he _believes_ them…"

Blunt reached over the table to where Tulip's cigarette was languishing in an impromptu ashtray, inhaling its acrid smoke hungrily for a moment, stalling.

"…All we can do is hope."

ARARARARAR

If the documents resting in Alex Rider's hands were to be believed, MI6 had had a hand in many more of the events leading up to this point in his life, and it had been his unfailing, undeserved, trust in them that had allowed it to happen. After being shoved out of Bianca's room – office? – unceremoniously he had been accosted by a very familiar assassin who had handed him a meticulously bound file of documents and the strict instruction to _read this_.

So many things in his life had been orchestrated by them, or so these pages implied, that it was unreal. He remembered the confusion over his parents' death, the uncertainty over who had killed his father – whose side he had worked for – and this situation was near identical. The doubts from before swelled within him once again. He'd known for a long time that MI6 weren't exactly honest, or moral, but he'd accepted them as being the lesser of two evils. He couldn't help remembering Bianca's quiet statement: _"At least we look after our own."_ MI6 were… negligent at best.

He shook his head violently to rid himself of his traitorous thoughts. Yes, MI6 might not have done right by _him_, but they had the best interests of the country – the world – at stake. What was one boy's life compared to a million others? He looked down at the sheets in his hands. He doubted they were genuine – he could have made up those fake memos in Photoshop himself in less than half an hour – but he could turn this around and use this to his advantage. He could head back to MI6, letting SCORPIA think he was working for them, which could give him a certain amount of leverage towards getting paid for his work… amongst other things. Many other things.

Alex was a great actor.

ARARARARAR

They'd believed him. He'd told Bianca that, although he trusted her about as far as he could throw her, he was fed up of being used by the government, and as such he'd gladly work for them. She'd smiled, looking as if the weight of the world had just been lifted off her shoulders, before offering him his old job back. He was to head back to MI6 and report back from the inside, which Alex quickly agreed to. He had no problems with fucking SCORPIA over in the slightest, and was overjoyed that his trip back to British soil would be so easily came by.

Alan Blunt, on the other hand, hadn't believed him in the slightest.

The following Monday found him languishing in a cell in the bowels of the earth somewhere below the Royal and General Bank. He'd been questioned twice, tortured thrice, and with no end in sight he was beginning to question his decision to return. Mrs Jones, during both of his interrogations, had assured him that this was "merely standard protocol" which they both knew was total and utter bull.

He'd been _resting_ in the cell for four days when he lost patience. He'd been willing to sit through MI6's crap without making any trouble right up until the point when they sent in a tall guy with bleach-blonde hair and a bad attitude to _loosen his tongue_, which he took to with relish. He was all hands and overly loud boasting and righteous anger. Alex could deal with that in an interrogation. He'd had worse. What he couldn't handle, though – what hit a bit too close to the bone – was when the fucker tried to touch him. Needless to say, Alex kneed him in the groin, looking straight into one of the cameras he knew were in the room.

"Is this the way you treat an agent who's working for you?" he asked the air, exasperated. "To think I came here willingly." The man in question started to unfurl from his slightly hunched posture, but Alex kicked him back down with little effort, muttering under his breath as he fished for a card key to get him out of the cell: "Amateur…"

The man whose pocket he was fumbling around in growled at him, baring his teeth provocatively.

"You didn't say that last time you were here."

Alex looked at him funnily.

"Have we… Do I even _know_ you?"

The man grinned at him, feral.

"Oh, I know you, Alex. _Intimately._"

"…Fuck off."

Alex extricated himself from the man's pocket, cardkey in hand, knocked him out swiftly, and that was that. He swiped the card through the reader on the door. It bleeped and slid open with a whoosh as he readied himself for combat.

There was nobody waiting for him.

He was almost disappointed that MI6 didn't think him dangerous enough to assign more security to his cell. _Almost_. He crept out into the hall, shoeless once again, and padded his way to the elevator, pausing just before he pressed the button to call for it. There were who knows how many sensors in the lifts to enforce security… He'd have to go for the emergency staircase. Ten minutes later he'd found it cleverly hidden inside a supply closet and was bounding up them. He saw the sign for the ground floor and passed it. He wanted out of the bank, but there was something else he needed to do first…

ARARARARAR

It hadn't been difficult to get into Ian Rider's office – all it took was a call to Mr Crawley impersonating someone higher in the corporate ladder requesting his presence for something or other followed by a quick leap from balcony to balcony. They'd removed the flag pole he'd used the first time, yes, but he'd improved his parkour ever so much since. He'd also known his uncle's details for at least a year now, not that he'd let MI6 know that, and as such logging into his computer was a doddle.

He'd poked around in MI6's classified files before on Ian's computer, looking at international scandals, VIPs and MPs with criminal backgrounds – wikileaks had _nothing_ on this database – but nothing had ever really jumped out at him as being important. He just hadn't known the right words to search for.

He called up the MI6 intranet connection (none of these computers were connected to the internet – that would make it _way_ too easy for the terrorists) and logged in to the resource centre. A page loaded up, with a search bar and several options: search by title, search by tag, search by agent.

He clicked the second option and his fingers hovered over the keyboard hesitantly.

What was he doing? He'd trusted Yassen blindly before, and look where that got him! _"Find your fate – find SCORPIA"_ – what a piece of crap! That bit of friendly advice had left him with a bullet speeding towards his heart.

But again… How many missions had MI6 sent him on where the outcome had been similar or worse?

He was so terribly conflicted.

Did he even _want_ to know the truth – if SCORPIA had told him the truth? Could he deal with the fact that he'd been working for the wrong people for the past two years?

He realised, somewhere deep in the rational part of his brain, that this was probably all some fucking mind game concocted by the masterminds at SCORPIA, and yet he couldn't bring himself to care.

Doubts grew within his mind.

He _needed_ to know the truth.

His hands hovered for one more second before, aware that time was quickly running out, he tapped at the keyboard.

_**jack starbright**_

He stared at the screen before typing out one more word.

_**elimination**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>So. It's been a while.<strong>_

_**Not gonna lie, I spent ages just staring at this and thinking 'shit, nobody's going to like it'. Because I don't particularly. I have so much I need to say and put down but that's all for next chapter so you get some really boring filler-y shit and I get to hate myself for making you read this! YAY!**_

_**So short.**_

**_Sorry it's so late, etc, you all deserve better._**

**_ohmanyou'reallgonnahateitaren'tyou_**

**_..._**

**_AND ONE MORE THING. I apologise for spelling "Gregorovich" with a t. How fucking humiliating. Just gonna go cringe in the corner and change them all quickly._**


	17. Send Us

_**NEW AND IMPROVED, LADIES AND GENTS. READ ON.**_

**Chapter 16 – "Send Us"**

"Gentlemen," Mrs Jones addressed the group of four SAS soldiers sat in front of her. "In your honest opinion, how loyal to this country would you believe Alex Rider to be?"

The aforementioned SAS soldiers looked at her strangely.

"I don't think," Snake said boldly – for this SAS unit was indeed K – "that Cub's loyalty to us could ever be called into question." The others nodded sagely, and Eagle took this moment to speak.

"I agree – he went beyond the call of duty to assure our escape-"

"We know just how far _beyond the call of duty_ Alex went," Mrs Jones interjected, "to ensure _your_ safety, dare I say more so than you do. However, we do not wish to know about your _personal_ relationships. What we need to know is how loyal Alex is to this country – to MI6."

Wolf coughed, and Mrs Jones looked at him uninterestedly, as if regarding some insect below her attention.

"Has Cub done something for his loyalty to come under question?" he asked tentatively. Mrs Jones snapped back at him with barely concerned ire.

"_That_ is none of your concern, soldier, unless I say it is so."

Wolf visibly recoiled, and Mrs Jones snatched a cigarette from her pocket, lighting it within seconds and puffing on it compulsively. She glared at the unit pre-emptively, daring them to object and silencing them efficiently. A few breaths of nicotine later and she had collected herself enough to speak calmly again.

"Rider is currently in one of our holding cells following your suspicious escape from Anton Ivanov five days ago, so I must ask you again: _do you think that Alex Rider is loyal to his country?_"

Fox frowned at her attitude, before saying with only a small amount of snide contempt: "I can't think of a single reason why he wouldn't be."

Mrs Jones narrowed her eyes at him perceptibly.

"Your input is appreciated, Daniels, and your sarcasm noted. You have reason to believe that Rider could be a double agent?"

Ben's eyes widened and he furiously began back-pedalling.

"No! That's not what I meant at all! I was just saying-"

He was cut off suddenly by Mrs Jones' mobile ringing; she brought up a hand to silence him and flipped open the old technology to answer it. Barely a minute passed but by the end of the phone call her face was pale and she looked somewhat panicked.

"Gentlemen," she began, trying to maintain her professional image at all times. "It seems as if this continuing this conversation will be of little use. Alex Rider has escaped his holding cell. As a higher-powered member of the MOD I have the authority to give you commands. As such, I order you to capture Alex Rider before he leaves this building."

K-Unit stared at her, unresponsive. Mrs Jones found her patience running thin.

"What are you waiting for? _**Go.**_"

ARARARARAR

Alex still had no idea what he was doing, or what he'd been thinking. Knowing things had never made anybody happy – all knowledge brought was pain… and the responsibility to solve the inevitable atrocities he would have learnt about. In his experience, that's all that secrets tended to be: things not socially acceptable, either swept under the carpet or as part of a conspiracy… it all ended the same way for him. It was with this thought in mind that he headed out of his uncle's office to the balcony and jumped into Crawley's office.

It wasn't empty.

"Alex?"

Fuck.

"Alex, what are you doing up here?"

Alex wasted no time in knocking Crawley out. The man was truly an ineffectual spy, a perfect example that it's _who_ rather than _what_ you know that matters, no matter where you are in the world. He was on his way out of the room when he noticed a small red light flashing underneath Crawley's desk. Against his better judgement he leaned over to inspect it.

It was a panic button. Apparently Crawley wasn't as useless as he appeared, then. He'd have a matter of seconds to escape the building, forget about exacting revenge. He rushed through the doorway, only to see a multitude of agents pouring from offices and rushing towards his position. He cursed quietly and hurried back through Crawley's office and onto the balcony. His mind was working at a mile a minute; time seemed to slow as he weighed up his options. He could either go up or down. He'd learnt a long time ago that going up could only lead to death – unless, that is, there's a handy improvised tightrope-walking kit to be made – but it was a long way down.

Unless…

The agents were closing in on him; they'd reached the door and were filtering through, jogging towards him with guns raised.

He bid them a final glance before he jumped.

The fall, short as it was, jarred his already-strained shoulders, blood blossoming from the still relatively new trench on his back, stitches rupturing as his arms were wrenched upwards. His hands clawed desperately at the balcony rail he'd vaulted over for the grip he needed; the forwards motion he'd propelled his self off with swung him sideways as one of his hands lost hold of the railing. He thudded against the wall of the building, once again shoeless feet scrabbling for any nook or cranny in the wall to grab onto. Nothing.

He could hear the agents above him cocking rifles, radioing in his location, and he looked around him frantically, panicked by the revelation that they were calling in backup. There was no way he could get out of this—wait, over there. He could see, not too far away from him, the next building over… there was a wire between two buildings showing a banner for some festival or promotion. If he'd had the time, Alex would have sighed from the repetition of it all – he'd done this once before, if not under quite the same circumstances.

In other circumstances, he might have calculated his next move more, or even at all, but as it was…

He pulled his body to the left, before pushing off as hard as he could to the right.

The wind whistled around him, impossibly loud – he was on target, he _could_ make it, _would_ make it! – and just like that he didn't quite make it, his fingertips didn't quite reach the metal rope, and he was clawing at the air, frenzied, _this wasn't the way he wanted to die, dammit_, but then, as suddenly as he'd missed the rope, he caught onto the sign. His fingers blistered from friction burn, the plastic-coated fabric tearing at his hands, but he couldn't help feeling overwhelmingly happy that he hadn't died, a feeling that was quashed somewhat by the fact that he was slowly slipping from his tenuous position. He clawed his way up till he has hanging from the metal rope, upside down and already very tired.

_I am getting way too old for this shit, _he thought bitterly. That didn't stop him from shimmying his way across to the nearest building, relieved to find this one much easier to scale than the Royal and General. Easy, that is, until the gunfire started. There was no sound to accompany the first bullet, just a whistle as it passed him, and a flake of the stone building chipping off and hitting his arm where the bullet impacted. He glanced to his left quickly, and saw two snipers set up on the Royal and General's balconies lining him up in their sights. That was as much incentive as he needed to head downwards as quickly as he could. Foot after hand after foot he descended, getting gradually faster as the snipers seemed to be zeroing in on him. For a moment there were no bullets being shot, and Alex, overconfident, over-reached for the next ledge.

A bullet hit him, skimming over the back of his hand. It wouldn't have been enough to disable him, if it hadn't been for the fact that his fingers had twitched from the pain, his whole hand convulsively jerking away from the ridge it had been grabbing on to. With no handholds, Alex only did what was natural.

He fell.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Once again, it has been a while.<em>**

**_Sorry about all the bitching and whining. I dunno. My life sucks, but I feel guilty for forcing that on you, even if/especially because I don't know you. Ah, life. I think I fucked up._**

**_Anyway, y'all enjoy this updated chapter._**


	18. So Far Away From Home

**Chapter 17 – "So Far Away From Home"**

"FUCK–"

He fell with an ominous crunch. Had it been any other situation, he would have stopped for his injury, as it was he had to power through the screaming pain he felt when he put any weight on his foot. Luckily, he'd only been a few metres from the ground before falling, minimising any possible damage. He stood, slowly, before being reminded of the snipers courtesy of a shot skimming his shoulder. He hissed, clutching his injured wrist to his chest, and ran off as fast as his leg would let him. He grit his teeth and ignored the sharp lance of pain accompanying every stride, heading towards… he didn't know where. There was so little he could do in his situation – fuck, he was a fugitive – but keeping moving seemed like the best option by far.

He looked behind him.

In hindsight, it was a rookie mistake.

A band of four black-suited men were running after him and gaining rapidly. They telltale bulges they concealed on their persons did more than hint that they were armed. Alex sped up, wincing and then muffling a scream as he felt his left ankle give way slightly under him. Uneven footing made it crunch again, and he knew that if he didn't find somewhere to rest, the fracture could easily become compound or, worse, a real break, and a messy one at that. He turned the upcoming corner into an alley, hoping to slip into the shadows and make a quick getaway. He should have foreseen the possibility of being trapped.

"Alex?" he heard a voice he couldn't quite place at first call to him. "Alex, calm the fuck down and come with us." He stopped and squinted at them through a film of pain-induced tears.

"K-Unit?" he barked out, half laughing. "Just my fucking luck."

"Cut that shit out, Alex," Eagle shouted to him from where they were guarding the exit to the alleyway. He knew in an instant that in this situation he'd never be able to take them all, or even one of them, out. He turned and ran in the opposite direction, leaving the alley seconds before the four suited men caught up with him. He put on an extra burst of speed, adrenaline now effectively blocking out he pain of his groaning ankle, and turned onto a more busy street in an attempt to lose himself in the crowd.

He was small and agile, darting in and around the throng of people with impunity, while the four men were decidedly more bulky and conspicuous. He looked behind himself quickly; the men were far enough away to slow down. Luckily for him, his stilted growth meant that he could stand to his full height and still be a good head shorter than most of the surrounding people, which is what he did. He walked briskly, with purpose, snatching a few wallets unnoticed along the way, all the while looking for a possible escape route.

There – maybe ten metres away – a taxi was pulling up to pick up passengers. He made his way over to it, yanking his hair and clothes into some sort of order on the way. He rustled through the wallets he'd gathered, and pulled out two twenty-pound notes once he was close.

"I'll give you one of these each," he said, waving the money in front of the people about to get into the cab, "If you let me take this taxi." They both stared at him incredulously. When it didn't work, he tacked onto the end, looking sad, "My mum's in the hospital. I need to get there as soon as I can." The well-dressed couple seemed to forget about his rather obvious bullet wounds when faced with his doleful expression, and ushered him into the car, not without pocketing the money he'd stolen first. He tumbled in, thrusting a note into the vicinity of the driver as he slammed the car door shut, looking over his shoulder for any pursuers.

"Keep your money, Alex – I'm not some cheap whore."

Alex nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard that smooth, deep voice.

"_Yassen_?"

"Close your mouth, Alex – you'll start catching flies."

"I– you—" He opened and closed his mouth a few times, words failing to come to him. "This is a taxi cab."

"Yes."

"And you're driving it."

"Right again."

"…Where's the driver."

"In the boot."

Alex shivered; Yassen's voice had been positively amused.

"Oh, that is vile." He looked at his wrist and sighed in resignation, peeling his three-day-old top off to tear apart for wound dressings. Yassen regarded him easily in the rear-view mirror before throwing him a small, lumpy bag.

"Bandages."

"Thanks."

Silence reigned for a moment as he dressed his wrist. He was interrupted before he tried to move onto his ankle, though.

"I'll do that. We'll be changing cars in a minute – can you wait that long?" A concerned look was shot back to him again; he nodded.

There was more silence between them: awkward on Alex's side, calm and graceful on Yassen's. Alex felt the need to break the silence.

"We've got to stop meeting like this."

Yassen raised an eyebrow.

"What, with one of us deathly injured and the other saving the day for the _nth_ time?"

Alex shrugged.

"I 'spose so."

"Just to clarify," Yassen continued, and Alex could head the grin in his voice, "I would be the person I referred to as perpetually saving the other's ass."

Alex rolled his eyes, and turned to look Yassen in the eye… or as much as he could when all eye contact is only carried out through a mirror in a car.

"How did you find me, anyway?"

There was a pause, when–

"You didn't expect that we'd send you out here alone when we suspected you might still defect back to MI6, did you? Or when there was the slightest chance that they might not accept you back…"

Alex bit out a chuckle, but there was no mirth behind it.

"It wouldn't be the first time someone's done that."

Yassen was equally solemn when he replied; "I know."

They sat in silence for ten minutes, until they'd travelled far enough to change cars.

"Do you want to hotwire it, or shall I?"

Alex looked at Yassen, and then at his leg, pointedly – "I think I'm going to have to sit this one out," – and before he knew it they were on the road again.

This pattern repeated some 3 times before they were safely out of London and Yassen took the time to wrap Alex's ankle in the parking lot of a rest stop on the motorway surrounding London.

"It's a lot to take in," Alex finally admitted, somewhere around the 5th car. Yassen looked at him _sympathetically_ and patted him on the knee.

"I'm sure it is."

Alex shook his head.

"They–" Christ, he was tearing up about it. "They tried to kill Jack. And they lied about it. They told me you did it. And– and they–" He choked off the end of his sentence. "I don't want to talk about it."

Yassen nodded.

"Many of us have suffered an injustice at the hands of an enemy."

"No," Alex spat, "It's more than that. They– they made you–– I thought you were some kind of monster when I first saw you again after being _saved_ by MI6."

Yassen's face darkened.

"I'd never–"

"I… I know. My body just doesn't seem to know what I know."

A scowl spread across Yassen's face, and his hand hovered awkwardly, wanting to support the boy next to him. He settled for palming the gear-stick, angrily switching up to fifth, grinding the gears in his anger.

Silence passed between them as they broke the speed limit several times on the way to the airport until Alex broke it.

"MI6 has been the one constant in my life these past few years…" He paused and laughed. "How absurd is that? I guess I found it comforting in some fucked up way that no matter what happened, MI6 would be there next week, screwing me over once again. Like a ritual."

If he'd been expecting some sort of emotional help from Yassen, he was to be disappointed.

"We're nearly at the airport."

And that was that.


	19. When

**Chapter 18 – "When"**

The airport was a dead end. Alex had watched as they got nearer and Yassen's mouth set into a grimace. Looking out the window, it was clear to see why as well. Police presence had clearly increased, with blockades stopping and searching cars before one had even entered Gatwick properly. Swearing lightly under his breath, Yassen pulled the car into a highly illegal U-turn and sped off once again down the motorway.

Alex heaved a small, worried sigh.

"Where will we go?"

Yassen glanced at him, before returning his concentration to the road.

"The same place we always did."

At Alex's blank stare, he sighed heavily and elaborated.

"I forgot about… what they did to you." He checked his watch quickly, the on board clock having returned to 00:00 when he hotwired the car. "We have about two hours – more than enough time for an overview. Do you remember when you defected to SCORPIA?"

Alex nodded; he remembered.

"And the second time?"

Alex screwed up his forehead.

"No, although Bianca told me about it vaguely."

Yassen tutted and shook his head slightly, mouth set into a miniscule frown.

"Your Jack… MI6 tried to kill her, didn't they?" A nod. "This was not news to us. Neither should it have been to you. You found out about six months ago." Seeing Alex's disbelief and shock he continued, trying to convince him. "You can check her records at the hospital if you will. They will confirm that the event you remember happened much less recently than you were told." There was a pause as Yassen overtook a much slower vehicle in front of them, after which he looked to check on Alex's condition. "MI6 tried to kill Jack as she was hindering your development as a spy, as they saw it. You found this out… and came to us." A wry smile. "We accepted you with open arms. Bianca was pleased with you, more than pleased in fact, for finally opening Julia's place on the chairman's board… And with Bianca on board, it wasn't long before every other man at SCORPIA's head followed her decision."

Alex looked at him open-mouthed in disbelief.

"I don't believe it! Are looks really so highly regarded that people would follow her blindly like that?"

Yassen raised one eyebrow.

"It's not just her looks, you know. There's a rumour going around that she does the most amazing flexing thing with her-"

"OKAY, that's enough!" Alex all but squeaked at him. "Honestly, a bunch of grown… I thought that kind of superficial crap got left behind at high school."

Yassen's uncharacteristic scoff informed him otherwise as he indicated left and undertook the Porsche in front.

"Honestly?" Yassen began. "Bianca's got a good head on her shoulders – a damn good one at that – but she wouldn't have gotten anywhere in this world if not for her ridiculously good looks. Beauty and success go hand in hand in this world." There was a pause, before Yassen said in his most deadpan voice: "Which must be why I've gotten so far."

Now it was Alex's turn to stifle a snort, badly.

"Just…" he gasped, trying to maintain a straight face and failing terrifically. "Just tell me where we're going."

"The docks."

"Would we be able to stop any time soon?"

"No."

Silence reigned, and the easy, almost _familiar_ manner they'd fallen into evaporated, once again leaving Yassen as the untouchable, emotionless killer and Alex as the cowed, quiet teenager licking his wounds in the corner. The longer the silence held, the more uncomfortable Alex felt. He didn't know whom to believe any more. What Yassen and Bianca told him seemed unbelievable! Brain-washing, memory-wiping and an evil home security office that was out for Alex's family in order to make him a better weapon! But… what else was there for him to believe?

In the end, the decision had already been made for him. MI6 had forsaken him; he'd in all likeliness been blacklisted and made a wanted criminal in _at least _the UK. There was nowhere else for him to go. SCORPIA was, once again, offering him an escape clause… and probably for the last time. There was nothing else he _could_ do but accept it graciously and join their company for real this time.

It wouldn't be so different, he realised. He'd killed people before – several times, actually. The only difference is that this time he'd be getting paid for his work. He'd have to, he supposed, just put aside his feelings for the people he was working with, and for. His doubts over Yassen's character had been gradually accumulating since they'd met again in the plane, and now…

Regardless, there was no other option.

The silence stretched on, and Alex shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His back, which had been slowly but continuously oozing blood for the past few hours, had soaked into the dark grey fabric he was sat on, and he peeled himself off with a terrible sound not totally unlike Velcro being ripped apart. Yassen spared him a glance before fumbling behind his seat, coming back within moments with the bag from earlier grasped in his hand, which was deposited gently in the boy's lap.

"I know I said I'd be able to do that for you," Yassen sighed exasperatedly – or as close as he was willing to get to it while still on a job – "But we can't stop now that MI6 will be shutting down the borders."

Alex nodded in understanding.

"I can manage. It's not like I haven't done this before…" he mumbled, reaching into the carry-all and searching for anything helpful.

"I know," Yassen replied evenly, "I just always thought I'd be able to… Your father-" He cut off mid-sentence and stared resolutely at the road ahead. Alex followed his example and silently reached down further into the bag in the search of bandages, hissing as he bent over too far and his ribs scraped and ground nauseatingly. He barely withheld from gagging; instead he clutched desperately at his ribs and grabbed onto the edge of his seat. His brief stint in the MI6 cell hadn't done him any real harm – in fact, the ability to rest during the night, and no use of any 'real' torture had practically been bed-rest for him, allowing his wounds to improve nicely – but the escape act had done back any damage he might have healed and added more to the mix. He could practically feel Yassen's eyes on him as he curled up further. Despite the… uneasy truce would be the best thing to call it, he supposed… he still wasn't willing to show more weakness than he had to, be it to someone he trusted or, in this case, didn't. He sat up (ignoring the audible grinding in his ribs the action produced) and finally found a bandage in the surprisingly big bag, which he set to unrolling.

Despite his efforts to remain stoic, he was panting from exertion by the time he'd wrapped the bandage around his torso twice; Yassen was doing a good job at looking concerned and amused at the same time, which aggravated Alex deeply.

"You all right?"

Alex seethed.

"Just _fine_ actually, thank you for asking."

"You're welcome. There's morphine in one of the side pockets."

Alex's eyebrows rose of their own accord, before he realised exactly who he was talking to, and he muttered to himself.

"Of course there is. I don't know why I was surprised…"

A quick, apprehensive jab later and Alex relaxed back into his seat to await the effects. It wouldn't take long; he'd just patch himself up when it didn't hurt to move any more. He decided to turn his thoughts to Yassen. Or rather, his thoughts went there by themselves and decided to take him along for the ride.

SCORPIA… By now he'd effectively decided to disassociate the man next to him from his memories, for the sake of his sanity. Alex Rider was very good at many things, and repressing his feelings was one of those things. He couldn't deny the injustice he felt, the anger, the hot burning pain of fear and regret and self-blame that lanced through him when his thoughts turned to that time of uncertainty, but that's what it was now, to him. Uncertainty. Whoever had done… that… to him would pay, and dearly, but he couldn't exact his revenge until he knew who to wreak his judgement upon. He'd been in many compromising situations in his life, certainly, and now… his judgement wasn't clear. His memories were fading already. Undoubtedly, he remembered every detail of what happened to him: every whip strike, every objectionable caress, every burn and brand that touched his skin. The trouble was… putting a face to the man. Or woman.

He couldn't trust his dreams any more than his memories, that much was sure. Many times his subconscious had put another in the place of his aggressor – sometimes it was Yassen, but at others it had been Jack, Sabina, Tom, Ben, Ash, _Ian_… The list went on.

Feeling comfortably numb, he once again started wrapping the bandages around his torso, peeling himself off of the sticky, stained seat. He worked slowly but surely as he reflected still on his thoughts. Yassen remained still as ever, staring straight ahead at the road, although Alex noticed him glancing infrequently in the wing-mirror, checking up on him seemingly unconcernedly.

In this situation, he wanted more than ever to believe that Yassen _hadn't _done those things to him. What he needed now was safety and security in the organisation he was about to become a part of, and faith in his apparent partner. The man had seemed nothing but decent in the short time he'd spent with him recently. Now, with Alex half-naked and vulnerable, Yassen showed no signs of interest, no predatory look to suggest any allure. Even so, his mind reminded him quietly: _Spies and assassins are excellent actors_. His shirt was pulled down and his trouser leg pulled up to bandage his ankle.

He hated thinking like this. Emotions, _feelings…_ it was enough to make him sick, and the burden of passion would only make him weak. He hated how badly conflicted he was about this. He wrapped his ankle in the shroud of silence that had settled over them, reflecting more on his thoughts; as loath as he was to he knew it needed to be done – he couldn't afford discord in his own thoughts. Thoughts… that were becoming more and more circular as time went by.

He finished on his ankle and started bandaging his hand almost aggressively, a scowl set deep on his face. His companion's voice brought him back to earth.

"We're here."

* * *

><p><strong><em>I'm such a whiny bitch, and I'm back from my break of misery, depression and writer's block! I got an unconditional offer to my university of choice which made everything seem MUCH better, and now I'm about ready emotionally to really start writing. I put up a measly little chapter the other day but I'm replacing it with this.<em>**

**_I'm sorry I made a huge deal about reviews, though. I got really entitled about it because nothing else in my life was going very well but now it is so I can go without all of you telling me how much you like this on here without throwing a hissy and crying myself to sleep. (Just kidding. I never did that. Well, the second part anyway.) Do feel free to congratulate me for getting into university, though. It was a tough road with lots of tears and sweat and blood. And revision._**

**_TL;DR  
>Sorry I was a bitch, please forgive me, reviews appreciated but not necessary, and now I'm back for good. Love all of you, please keep reading! Hopefully it'll only get better from here.<em>**


	20. You Know Damn Well

**Chapter 19 – You Know Damn Well**

"Where's here?" Alex asked disconcertedly, peering through the windows with obvious apprehension. "This doesn't look like any commercial docks I've ever been to…"

Yassen remained quiet, and Alex's face turned sour as he saw the seafront nearing.

"Yassen, please… tell me that after I've broken several of my ribs, after I escaped from MI6, after everything that's already happened today… Just tell me that after all that, we're not going to be escaping England in a container ship."

Yassen's lips remained firmly sealed. Alex barely managed to contain his annoyance, settling instead for squeezing the bridge of his nose as he sighed deeply. The car pulled up to a nondescript prefab shipping office, skidding slightly on the worn road surface that seemed to be more gravel than tarmac. Yassen slammed the handbrake on almost violently and undid his seatbelt, hasty yet still somehow composed, before turning to face Alex.

"Stay here. Be good. Finish bandaging yourself up if you have to; I'll be back within a matter of minutes."

"When have you ever known me to 'be good'?"

Yassen nodded at him, in agreement he supposed, and slunk out of the car and into the office with remarkable speed. He could see through the blinds on the building's windows that Yassen and… someone inside it were talking… and that was all. Nobody had been killed yet, which could only be a good thing as far as keeping undercover went. Alex decided to follow Yassen's advice and rooted further through the bag he'd been handed earlier. There were more bandages, pills and general medical supplies… and a gun. Of course. He skimmed over that – he was unsure about how the logistics of smuggling those kinds of items overseas would work out – and instead, somewhat hesitantly, pocketed a few more auto-injectors of morphine. He glanced up at the office once again; Yassen seemed to be finishing his transaction up, as he was now heading towards the door. Alex turned away from the window and busied himself with re-wrapping his hand and generally looking innocent as the door opened and the other man leaned in.

"I bought us passage on the ship."

"In a shipping container."

"Don't be facetious, Alex. It doesn't suit you." Alex opened his mouth to retaliate, but Yassen cut him off. "The man I talked to has fed a loop into his CCTV feeds – should the Government look they won't find us. Follow me." Alex glared at him weakly, but still hurried out of the car. Yassen, shouldering the carryall from before, headed off swiftly in the direction of some warehouses a fair ways off, and Alex followed him unquestioningly. That was going to get him in trouble one of these days…

Upon sneaking into the warehouse, he realised that it was, rather than a warehouse, more of a windbreak than anything as it lacked a roof. The giant crane working overhead gave reason enough as to why that was. They stopped for a moment, Alex looking for company and Yassen looking for… he wasn't sure what.

Whatever Yassen had been looking for, he seemed to have found it as, without any more warning than a grunt and a cock of his head, he dashed off towards one of the corners of the room. Alex once again followed.

"These have all been cleared and locked by security," Yassen explained over his shoulder as they jogged. "The only way into one of them now is-"

Alex saw what they were heading towards.

"Up."

Yassen nodded, yes.

The container they were headed towards was no different to the rest of them, except for the fact that I was positioned atop two others, with a gap of roughly a foot and a half between them – more than enough room for a person to squeeze through.

"So, there's a trap door up there, right?"

Again, Yassen nodded, and reached into the bag; he came back with a monkey wrench that he began hastily applying to the bolts on the underside of the container holding on the trap door. They loosened within minutes and the door swung down on its hinges, narrowly avoiding Alex's head, as he'd been scouring the area for onlookers rather than paying the strictest of attention to the other man's activities. Yassen smirked and held a hand out towards the opening.

"Ladies and children first."

Alex glowered; Yassen offered a patronising leg up in retaliation.

"Fuck you," he spat without any real malice behind it. "I've done this loads of times." With that he jumped and caught onto the rim of the opening into the container, pulling himself in – and okay, that _did_ sting a little bit, and maybe his pride could have been put to the side for the moment while he was injured – and feeling only a tiny bit of vindictive glee as his foot briefly, but not too gently, connected with Yassen's face during the struggle up. The indignant splutter didn't really help matters either. Regardless, eventually, and with much flailing, he ended up completely in the container.

He really wished he hadn't. It was dark, and claustrophobic, and the _smell_… sweat and ammonia and the acrid tang of bile burnt his nostrils. His trips in these containers had, he suddenly realised, been luxury class. MI6 – or on one occasion, ASIS – organised, they had been clean and serviceable if boring. This… The container was dank and hot, and had clearly just been in use trafficking more people into the UK. Through years of experience, Alex controlled his gag reflex and calmed himself down, reaching to hoist Yassen up through the opening. Sure, that man could most definitely do it himself, but Alex felt a bit like emasculating him at the moment. _Women and children first, my arse…_

He immediately regretted it at he felt the off-putting grinding his ribs made as he did so – while it didn't hurt now he knew he was only doing further damage to himself. He soldiered through it anyway, and Yassen was soon in the container with him and tightening the nuts on the trap door closed once again. As the door shut, it took what precious chinks of light it had let in with it. A shroud of darkness settled on the container's interior. Alex fell deathly still. A muffled rustle of fabric; a torch procured from the bag illuminated the container once more.

A dirty futon in the corner, a camping bed, a rucksack of supplies and a chemical toilet; these were the items that adorned the cabin, which had obviously been smuggled in through the trap door once it had been cleared for shipping. Other than that, the container was filled with a few crates of negligible value, merely there to keep up the appearances of a legitimate trading company. As Yassen dusted himself off, Alex padded over to the bag of supplies they'd been provided with: two half-drunk litre bottles of tap water, and some high-calorie, low-taste energy bars to last them through the night.

The light flickered. Yassen hit the flashlight and cursed.

"It's night time anyway," he near to groaned. Alex could almost hear the resignation in his voice. "We should preserve energy, both for the torch and ourselves, and sleep." There was a quick last glance at his watch. "The ship is set to head out in two hours. I assume we'll be loaded soon – we were set to be one of the last containers on, and one of the first off." He waved a hand at the camping bed, and Alex took that as an invitation for him to take the less unappealing of the two options as his bed. The torch was switched off, and he could hear Yassen settling down on the stained mattress. Alex made sure to lay himself down _carefully_ on his back so as to avoid further damaging any of his injuries as he bunked down for the night, and closed his eyes.

All he could do now is wait for the morning.

* * *

><p><strong><em>There you go. Another update. Aren't you lucky.<em>****_ Action is coming up, and soon... Hope you liked it, and if you do? Tell me. Feel free to ask questions as well - I love me some in-depth story analysis._**


	21. This Is Wrong

**Chapter 20 – This Is Wrong**

"_Sleep_, Alex."

Yassen's voice betrayed the strain he must have felt, aggravation and tiredness creeping through his usually impeccable manners and tingeing his accent ever so slightly Russian.

Alex fidgeted instead, but quietly. Tiny chinks of light illuminated equally tiny areas of the container where metal walls didn't quite meet the metal ceiling, throwing the rest of the container into an even starker darkness. It was a sickly kind of light – fluorescent and vaguely yellow – and Alex hated it. Hated the container; hated this stupid situation. How had his life come to this? Hadn't he been happy, once? He supposed he must have been to a certain extent, as most children are… and hadn't Ian been happy? He turned to roll onto his side, but stopped as his ribs protested. Of course, that option wasn't that much better, so he fidgeted a bit more to distract himself from that line of thought. One of the chinks of light rippled as the man underneath it sat up in a graceful move, entirely incongruous to the setting.

"We have only so many bandages, Alex. Desist your wriggling. You will reopen your wounds."

Alex stopped.

Ian had been happy, he decided. He hadn't been ready, he knew this now – ready to have a child, to quit his job, to be responsible – but he had tried. If only it had been enough. Ian's position as the 'fun uncle', never really taking a fatherly stance, always there with some fun new activity or skill to learn but never getting beyond a stilting, awkward kind of relationship emotionally… maybe if it had been different, he never would have gotten so attached to their housekeeper, wouldn't have needed her to stay past the time she could have reasonably been expected to leave, could have protected her from this mess. _Jack…_

"_**Alex.**__"_

Alex jolted out of his thoughts with a start. He'd been picking at the cut on his hand, an awful anxious habit of his he couldn't seem to break, and the bullet trail from his escape was now once again bleeding sluggishly. Yassen's hand was on his, gently prying it off and away from the ragged mess that he'd created. Tired and un-medicated, Alex felt his skin shiver in apprehension. Through some kind of high created by morphine and adrenaline, he'd managed to set aside his instinctive fear for this man, but right now–

"_You're too close-"_ he managed to choke out, before dry heaving. The other man snatched his hand back as if burnt and stuttered in place as he appeared to deliberate between attempting to comfort the boy and leave him be. With the delay, and Yassen's proximity, in the front of his mind, Alex could almost feel hives break out along his skin.

"I don't–_please_ –just _get away!"_ Alex breathed out, his voice almost reaching a screech towards the end. Yassen scrambled to the other end of the container, a sight that would have made Alex laugh at any other time but now, as Alex tried to calm his breathing.

'Tried' being the operative word.

_Okay, think. It's not like he's shown himself to have any designs on you, nefarious or otherwise. He's been cordial – friendly, even._ Alex breathed deeply through his nose and out through his mouth. In, out. _He's had plenty of opportunity to take advantage of me, so far, and he hasn't. _In. _That's got to mean something, right?_ Out. _I mean, here I am, stuck in a small enclosed space with a world-renowned assassin –_in, out, in, out_–And I'm still alive! And well, or, well, mostly well – that is to say, no __**new**__ injuries, and–_

A whirring sound; a clunk; a slight drop in his stomach as the container is lifted into the air; the total absence of his stomach as he realises that there can be no escape: these are the things it takes for Alex Rider to have a panic attack.

The walls are suddenly closing in. Yassen's uncharacteristically diminutive figure is looming. The whirring of the crane is reminiscent of so many close calls in his past; the shifting shafts of light seem to come as if through prison bars. _He can't escape._ There has always been a way out. In every situation in his life, there was been A Way Out: an undiscovered exit, a lax guard, some asshole who wants sexual gratification and would be stupid enough to lose control to get it. Here, there is just a trapdoor and a rapidly closing window of time in which to use it.

The lurching of the container stops, and with an almighty jolt, the window closes.

The container is down.

There is no escape.

His thoughts circle dangerously. He's only vaguely aware of the symbolism of his hand gripping at the scar over his heart, more concerned with the frankly alarming pace that it's beating at. Despite the emotional haze, one thought cuts through to the forefront of his mind. It's hazy, but it's the best he can do as he feels more than sees his vision start to grey out.

One simple stab in the leg, and the auto-injector does the rest.

Yassen looks vaguely alarmed, he manages to note somewhere in the recesses of his mind – he'll probably consider the implications of that later. Right now, he just focuses on maintaining his breathing and trying to ignore the thoughts swimming and circling, swimming and circling, swimming and…

His thoughts aren't doing much of anything now. It feels like… An analogy for it would be, perhaps, if you imagined your brain was made of tiny boxes… and the box of it that held Alex The Spy in it… Well, it didn't exactly disappear… but it certainly made it seem less important. Checking that his breathing was holding steady (it was), he finally relaxes.

"Sorry," he mumbles at length, still not making eye contact with the assassin a metre or so away from him. "So it turns out that I'm not really over that whole '_somebody tortured me, maybe it was you, maybe it wasn't'_ thing. And maybe being in an enclosed space with you isn't such a good idea when I'm not high on drugs or adrenaline or endorphins or shit." He steadfastly avoids looking at Yassen as he speaks, staring instead somewhere into the far distance between the chemical toilet and a crate of inflatable lilos. His nose wrinkles as the acid from the pool of bile on the floor hits him, causing him to add: "Sorry about the mess."

Yassen looks struck.

"I didn't-"

"So you say. And I'll get over it." Alex looks somewhere in between Yassen's eyebrows in order to feign looking him in the eye. He's not sure if he falls for it, but equally he's not sure if he cares. "Until then, how many of those morphine packs do you have?"

"Your father–"

"–Would not want me to be incapacitated by panic attacks, and would approve of me using whatever means necessary to overcome them for the good of my mission, _which_, by the way, happens to be escaping England both safe _and_ sane. Don't talk to _me_ about my father."

Yassen visibly grit his teeth.

"You didn't know your father."

"_And neither did you."_ Those angrily hissed words echoed throughout the container. "You loved him _and he betrayed you._ How did that make you feel? How do you think _I_ feel?!" The silence was deafening and emotionally charged but for the rasp of Alex's breathing. "_Then let me have this!"_

A minute must have passed, if not more, before the bag of supplies was thrown his way. It fell to the floor by Alex's feet, its contents clattering out onto the floor of the container. Bandages, a few clothes, three more shots of morphine… no gun – not that he blamed Yassen for that particular decision. Snatching up the injector tubes, he began secreting them away in the many pockets of the cargo shorts Yassen had provided him with.

Excitement momentarily over, he started to properly feel the drug's effects, as if someone was wrapping his brain in cotton wool. He lay back down on his cot, suddenly rather sleepy.

A voice interrupted him as he began to doze.

"I thought you were better. I thought you had more self control."

Alex snorted, and mumbled a reply.

"I'm a spy, not an assassin. I hide my emotions, not kill them off completely."

He didn't expect a reply, and didn't stay awake to hear one.

_**A/N: So I got a really angry review (just kidding, I thought it was hilarious) which said:**_

"_**You said "Action is coming up, and soon..." **_

_**Well I was wondering what your definition of "soon" was because it has been more than a YEAR since you updated."**_

…_**to which I was like **_**SHIT, brah, has it been **that** long?!**

_**So, like, I wrote a thing. T'aint action, but it's a thing.**_


	22. I Would Still Lay Down

**Chapter 21 - I Would Still Lay Down**

Waves of nausea rolled through him as corresponding waves of water rolled around the ship, and Alex rolled pathetically on his temporary bunk. He was indisposed at the moment because of the unadvisable amount of morphine he'd injected himself with in a futile attempt to rid himself of any anxiety he'd feel from being trapped in a small space with a legendary assassin for any period of time. It had worked… at the expense of a large part of his ability of keep any amount of food down. Said assassin was less than pleased with this. What the assassin was even more displeased about, however, was the morphine's other effect on the boy – namely the fact that it reduced him to a comatose state, and they were nearing their destination.

_Nearing_, he said. They were already in the port, if the boat's movements were to be believed. It hadn't been a particularly short trip, clocking in at around 18 hours… but it had been entirely too short of a journey to justify Alex using all of the tubes of morphine on himself. Yassen reached over for the umpteenth time to roll Alex into the recovery position on his side as he attempted to choke on his own spit. Entirely unsympathetic, he smacked the boy lightly on his cheek to try and wake him. No response. The morphine _had_ done what Alex had wanted, he supposed, in the worst way possible.

The ship had slowed earlier, the big engines protesting as they worked against the ship's momentum to pull them safely into the dock. They weren't there yet – there'd be more noise if that were the case – but they were getting there. He slapped Alex's cheek with more vigour this time. Alex responded by scrunching his face up, turning slightly in retaliation. It was a start, but barely.

"_черт возьми,"_ he cursed to himself: fucking hell. "_Это, как вы существуют, чтобы сделать мою жизнь сложнее..._"

He was more than surprised when he heard a reply mumbled back at him.

"_Что ты сказал_?" he demanded, shaking Alex's shoulders in the hopes of keeping him awake.

"_Я сказал,"_ Alex replied, swatting ineffectually at Yassen's grip on him, _"Вы можете быть правы_._"_ Nowadays, even on a bad day, Alex was as skilled as, if not better than, Yassen at hand-to-hand combat, so it worried him that Alex couldn't even shake him off.

"_Ты так трахал,_" he murmured, exasperated but fond, as he felt for Alex's pulse – weak and fluttery but still there, still keeping him alive. "_Ты хоть понимаешь, что ты русская речь прямо сейчас?_"

"_Я не говорю русский - __**Вы**__ говорите русский_." Satisfied that Alex wouldn't be dying any time soon, Yassen dropped his wrist and moved his hand to Alex's face, checking his pupils with the flashlight he'd dug from their bag.

"_Отстань от меня,_" Alex whined, trying to shift his head from Yassen's iron grasp. Pupil dilation was slow – Alex was high as a kite.

"_Сделай меня_," Yassen challenged. When all Alex could muster up in response was a weak shove, Yassen sighed and hissed under his breath. "_Это жалко_."

The boat lurched underneath them. Yassen's attention had been occupied by the conversation just then, but the movement suddenly drew it to the other situation at hand. The boat was finally moving into the dock and while Yassen knew he'd have to be ready he also knew they wouldn't be unloaded for a while longer. With this in mind, he located the hefty wrench he'd have to use to undo the hatch, and moved to loosen the bolts. They'd have to be undone just enough to allow a swift escape at the end of the journey, but left on tight enough that the weight of the trapdoor wouldn't work to release itself before it was time to leave. He fiddled with its undoing for a few minutes until he was pleased with the results before moving over to Alex again to try and rouse him again.

"Alex," he begged, patting his cheek again and stroking his sweaty hair back from his forehead, "I need you to wake up now."

Alex moaned and writhed weakly beneath him. His skin felt clammy to the touch and cold like ice. This was worrying.

What was even more worrying was the boat stopping, followed by the starting of a mechanical whirr. The containers were being unloaded. Not theirs yet, but soon…

Cursing violently once again, Yassen left Alex and began scooping everything of theirs into the carryall – the empty morphine tubes, spare clothes, bandages, the flashlight and gun all went in. The wrench stayed out. Completing a final check of the container for anything that could betray their presence, he returned to Alex for the last time, prying his eyelids open to check on them again. No response to light stimulus this time at all. The situation was just getting worse and worse. He checked for a pulse – still present, still fluttery and weak. No change there.

The mechanical whirring got worryingly close. The container lurched, and then they were in the air.

Yassen hurried to the hatch and glanced at Alex from his position on the floor, wrench in hand.

"I could really do with you being awake right now, Alex!" he hissed as he unfastened the trap door. It swung open to reveal a multi-coloured metal landscape moving slowly beneath them as they were hoisted through the air. Quelling any sense of vertigo he may have felt, he moved over to Alex, and sighed, draping the boy over one of his shoulders in a fireman's carry, and the carryall of their belongings over the other. Staggering under his load, he found his way to the side of the hatch and looked down. He suspected the man he'd bought passage from would by now have been found by MI6 and highly doubted they would not have tracked them here. He had to time this right. Unforgiving corrugated metal was beneath them, until it wasn't. The ocean. It had to be perfect. Not too close to the ship, but not too far away.

Clinging onto his precious cargo, he sent a prayer to a god he didn't believe in and he jumped.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Another short one. I've split it into two sections, is why.  
>The conversation is written in Russian because I like showing when they're speaking in another language rather than just putting things in italics, as thoughts tend to be in italics for me instead. Here are the translations if you'd like, as I don't like putting them inline with the text. It looks odd. If you want to know what things sound like you can copy and paste them into google translate and hit the 'listen' button.<br>Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time.**_

Translations:

YG: "Fucking hell, I swear you only exist to make my life difficult."

YG: "What did you say?"

AR: "I said, you may be right about that."

YG: "You're so fucked, do you even realise you're speaking Russian right now?"

AR: "I'm not speaking Russian, **you're** speaking Russian."

AR: "Get off of me."

YG: "Make me. This is pathetic."


End file.
